


These bloodlines, cursed and sacred

by crinkledpages



Series: The Chronicles of the Caer Arianrhod Coven [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Bits of Johnny/Jungwoo, Bits of Johnny/Ten, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Doyoung-centric, Endgame Jaehyun/Doyoung, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past/Current Johnny/Doyoung, Welsh themes, Wicca-based themes, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 20:08:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21151496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinkledpages/pseuds/crinkledpages
Summary: Doyoung is heir to the Seo bloodline and the Holly King. But his witch king has been sleeping under the earth for decades, and he's lost.





	These bloodlines, cursed and sacred

The piece of paper before him glitters gold as the lily ripples to life, shimmering next to the blackened four-leaf clover, already fading.

Doyoung flexes his arm, gaze thoughtful as he feels warmth shudder delightfully, sliding up from where the new flower is nestled in the crook of his forearm to his arm, shoulder, chest, to finally bloom and settle silently on his heart.

It works.

“It works,” a voice echoes his thoughts. Ten leans over his shoulder, picking up his hand to inspect his finished piece. “A lily…or…a thornapple? Don’t tell me you’re going to the Zhongs after all? I thought it was over when you gave them the olive plants.”

“It’s both. I fused them,” he says shortly, and snatches his hand back, rubbing the raw skin gently. “They have a follow-up request. It seemed urgent, so I’m going over later tonight.” He doesn’t miss Ten’s frown, and he knows Ten won’t keep quiet again, not like before.

“Everything’s always an emergency with them. There are plenty of witches who can jump on their every whim. You shouldn’t be one of them, just because they have some sort of hold on you.”

A little too late, he thinks. Too late for all of us. “They pay good money, and no one can do what I can.” He stands up, gathering his supplies – brushes, ten ink pots all of different colours, his diary, his dictionary, stencil pads, and crystals – into his brown messenger bag, worn with time. He’ll need everything, knowing their unpredictability. The dark blue peacoat is the last thing he grabs, folding it over his arm while he puts on his shoes. He glances back at his friend – his brother – before unlatching the door.

“Stay out of it, Ten.”

He makes sure to slam the door hard. It echoes with a ringing finality.

***

The Zhong mansion is a monstrosity of a fortress – a great castle with imposing steel spires and four gargoyles facing outward, their elongated mouths and sharp teeth howling a silent warning to trespassers. Spiked black gates leaden with dark magic enclose the property, and finally, a canopy of sprawling poison ivy and stinging nettle that stretches around their home – Doyoung’s own doing. He strokes a vine of ivy, pleased when it pulses hotly against his skin.

Darkness continues to submerge him amid the wide gardens, and it is in this dark that he finds comfort as he walks the familiar path up to the front door. It’s not quite home, but close. So close enough. Nearly two seasons have passed since he was last a guest here, but the garden is as immaculate, the pathway as cleanly swept, the air as fresh as mint, all belying the grey mien that will settle like a second skin once he breaches their wards. A snake brass knocker greets him, but it’s purely ornamental for his kind. He draws his thumb to the snake’s single fang, slicing it in a fluid motion, tracing a mayflower on it with his blood.

_Welcome._

The door swings ajar, and Doyoung steps in. White walls and a golden chandelier with diamonds imbued with protection floating above. Portraits of generations of Zhongs line the wide hallway, each painting with eyes that seemed to glower at the outsider, perpetual watchmen. He turns to the striking woman standing by the bottom of the arching stairwell. Her steps toward him are quiet, but his head seems to pound the closer she draws near.

“Merry meet, Healer.”

Doyoung bows his head, returning the greeting. “Merry meet, Lady Zhong.”

Zhong Liyin’s hands are soft and alabaster white when she takes both of his hands into her own. Head still bent, he kisses the bright jade ring on her left thumb, appropriately delicate and deferential. She smiles knowingly at the gesture, lifting his chin with the same thumb and forefinger, meeting his eyes calmly. Power flows between them at the contact, but he’s learned not to show any effect.

She is still touching him, hand now having moved to his cheek. Cold. Always cold. “You came prepared.”

Doyoung blinks purposefully, tilting his head slightly away from her hand. “You wouldn’t have called on me again if it wasn’t in my disposition to be,” is all he says.

Her laugh is high-pitched and discordant when she throws back her head. Doyoung hates it. “You are, as always, correct, Healer.” The deep green dress she dons sweeps gracefully across the floor when she turns, gliding into the next room. “Come, Chenle is in the drawing room. I’m afraid that we were expecting you much much earlier, but Nüwa hadn’t eaten yet, so she refused to leave. She can be so very stubborn…”

“I fed her some worms before I sent her back, and she sipped on a mix of pokeberry juice and blood. Thought it would help sustain her for the journey to the Lius – Jungwoo told me that was where she was next headed.”

Another smile, this time more genuine, brushes her porcelain features. “Thank you, Doyoung.”

He doesn’t miss the use of his name, and dips his head as strokes the lily-thornapple resting under his sleeve in gratitude. “Shall we? He must be in quite a foul mood now if he has been waiting.” Lady Zhong neither agrees or disagrees, but when she takes his arm in hers, her steps are noticeably quicker.

*** 

Chaos. It’s all that really comes to mind when Doyoung and Chenle’s mother push the gold-lined red chamber doors to Chenle’s room. Such a difference from the rows of neat books lining the shelves, maps ancient and new world overshadowing the emerald green walls. Where the five or so cages holding the family’s precious ravens used to hang from the constellation-littered ceiling have now crashed to the ground, a mess of black feathers clumped in drying blood. Blood, in pools on the marble floor, blood dripping down the dressing table slow and viscous. But not his own.

Chenle is on the bed, long limbs bent in awkward angles and nestled in thick throws as he observes their entrance. His eyes are the true deep green of a Zhong heir, calculating and assessing, composed even with streaks of blood across his cheek and slick on his hair. The boy-witch of the prophecy soon to unfold.

“Merry meet, Chenle,” Doyoung greets him in a similar fashion as he had his mother, except when he picks up his hand it’s not to kiss but to appraise. “It seems as if you’ve been killing the ravens again.” Chenle’s eyes flick to Doyoung’s hands, and if not for the protection surrounding him, Doyoung knows he would have tried to absorb his energy as well just to spite him. The boy’s eyes harden, but it is the only acknowledgement he gives of the healer’s presence. He pushes the thin sleeve of his pyjamas up, revealing a trail of burnt sigils – black and menacing against his fair skin.

“The runes aren’t taking hold anymore, are they?” He phrases it as a question, to not deny them of their dignity. For anyone else, he would have already struck them down with his tongue.

“No, not for some time now, as you had already predicted, doctor.” Doyoung thinks it fruitless to correct her for the hundredth time.

Lady Zhong walks over the broken raven corpses, taking care to lift her skirts as she crosses to the wall of ancient rune texts running along the length of the opposite end of the bedroom. They have not been knocked down yet. “What can be done? You know, that you owe me, Doyoung. And I will not let you or your brothers forget it for as long as that debt is not repaid.” She plucks a book on Silverbloods from the line of books, and Doyoung knows it wasn’t there before, that she had summoned it. “I will still, of course, pay you with the finest, rarest pigments for your assistance, and rubies and coin to sustain your shop, rest assured.”

He looks at the thin scar lining the back of her hand as she strokes the book’s spine, remembering that he had wondered at that time when and how it would be time to collect. So much time has passed and yet it still feels like yesterday that Lady Zhong was just a mere toddler when they’d first met. He stills, recognising the emblem on the spine. “That is…”

“Of the Old Vampyres who turned to witchcraft, yes. It has been hearsay that this knowledge is something you personally desire, but it seems that it is indeed true.”

Dangerous and more dangerous. But Doyoung already knew that he had entered the mouth of the lion’s den when he’d taken her proffered hand, all those years ago. Now he has to repay this, starting from the acceptance of the first of what was to be many innocuous entreaties months ago, each one luring him deeper and deeper into the bottomless abyss. He’s caught in their web now, like a python wrapping its prey in loose coils, its victim praying for that quick, sudden suffocation in place of this torture.

It’s pointless to deny it, but the brief spark of desire gives way to anger and pride, subsuming his want. “There is no need for thinly veiled threats, Lady Zhong. My abilities and my time will be Chenle’s whenever he needs me. I will need to have a closer look at these symbols and be given a precise history of each one, to start with.” He renders his face cool and expressionless, gritting his teeth with the effort of composure. “Though you are correct in my fascination with the Silverbloods, I could not accept a gift that is most clearly an heirloom, Lady Zhong. But the pigments and money would be a respectable transaction.”

The Zhong matriarch’s face hardens, but she manages to bloom. “Very well. I will have Yixing make the necessary arrangements.” And with that, she slides the book back into an empty space, vanishing immediately. A palpable weight lifts in the room.

Rising, he empties the contents of his bag onto Chenle’s bed, readying himself for the long night – likely nights – ahead. He unscrews a white ink pot, dipping a sharp wooden brush into the tint. He draws a series of bach flowers up his left arm for concentration. It takes a minute to flare up and cool, longer than he would have liked. He would have preferred to ink it closer to his head for better focus, but Chenle had also destroyed the mirrors in his wake, and Doyoung prefers to be precise in his craft, especially today of all days. He draws the boy’s hand to him again gently, not before stroking his hair fondly. “Let’s start with your hands, hmm?”

*** 

It’s four days later when Doyoung finally leaves, shadows under his eyes and fingers stained green, blue, and indigo with the plant balms he had pressed into Chenle’s skin. His forearms all the way down to his wrists, and thighs to toes are a canvas of leaves and flowers. He did toy with the boundaries of his body – mixing so many onto his skin simultaneously, but Lady Zhong had given him countless counterspell potions to drink – which had put a strain on his body to be kept sustained with hardly any rest, but it had been necessary. He thinks about asking Ten to brew his famous sleeping draught. He might be amenable, if he didn’t have such a long memory and a nasty inclination for excessive pettiness, and he’s not particularly up to dealing with it today.

He lets the door bang loudly behind him. The house is drenched in an odd odour - he sniffs - calendula? It’s weak, but it lingers. “Ten?” He calls down the corridor, tentative. He spots a couple of thistles on the floor in front of the couch. One of them is burning merrily. “There’s a thistle burning in the middle of the living room, I think it’s actually screaming at me – TEN!”

He grabs the poor plant to douse it under the kitchen tap, but a screech from Ten’s bedroom stops him. “Don’t!” Ten is only wearing a robe around his person, clearly something he had hurriedly tugged on in his haste. “I’m brewing thistle tea, now kindly drop the plant and step away – you’re contaminating my ritual,” he says haughtily.

Doyoung complies even though he can still hear the poor plant screaming. “It’s screaming,” is all he says wryly with a raised eyebrow before moving into his room to lob his satchel onto his desk roughly. Dealing with Chenle had been…draining, to say the least. A weariness creeps into him that he’s not felt in decades. His ink pots are all empty too, meaning he’ll have to venture outside at some point soon to get more. His eyes burn, and his fingers are cramped from days spent placing tattoo over tattoo all over Chenle. They had kept disappearing first within a day, and later on, every twelve hours, Goddess be damned.

“How is he?” Ten teeters around the doorframe, voice careful, testing the waters. His fingers are black from soot when he walks into the room, which smudges on him when he picks up Doyoung’s hand and pushes his long-sleeved plaid shirt up to his elbow. His skin is matted with overlapping drawings of coffee cherries, not having had enough time for one to disappear before drawing the next. Ten gives him a long, disapproving look.

“I needed to stay awake,” he explains insistently, quite unnecessarily.

He runs a finger over a series of small yellow tulips dotting his fingers. “I see you needed some cheering up too.” Doyoung supplies a short nod, too tired to really talk.

He scans the room for their other brother, feeling an emptiness with just the two of them. “Jungwoo?”

“At the caves in Okinawa – said he needed to visit their Maiden witch.”

“Alone?”

“With Kun.” Doyoung’s shoulders deflate in relief.

“I’ll brew some calming tea, and then some sleeping draught laced with honey after a hot bath – how does that sound?” Doyoung knows an olive branch when he sees one, and he takes it, wrapping Ten in a tight, bone-crunching hug. Goddess, he doesn’t deserve Ten. It has been the two of them for so long, travelling to unknown cities, nameless cities, cities that had fallen – some to ruin – eternal companions in a way that would have been an unfathomable concept once. His fiery temper and Ten’s vengeful nature combined was a bubbling cauldron wont to boil over at any second. To have lasted nearly three hundred years as a unit…it’s a blessing.

He sits at the dining table in contemplative silence, lost in thought with Ten’s fumbling of the cabinets and tea-brewing humming as background noise. He thinks about the flesh peeling at the edges next to old rune scars that they’d branded on Chenle in their first few frivolous and foolish attempts at controlling a magic so beyond their understanding. It had looked like it had been charred in certain areas even. Chenle had kept his courage throughout Doyoung’s inspection. Even more impressive was how quickly he had learnt the flowers and plants sketched in Doyoung’s notebook by heart, requesting for a variety of valerian root for insomnia – something he ordinarily would have been loathe to prescribe if not for the dire situation – aloe vera to soothe his wounds, and nettle to disinfect, both inside and out.

Even with all this, it would only be a matter of time before it stopped working, like how those runes had extinguished the light in his eyes. He had wondered as to why it had taken them at least five full moons to call on him, but his heart had already known the answer.

Ten pushes the mug to him, and Doyoung pushes it up for it out of habit, hands twisting the mug in circles absent-mindedly. “He’s fading.” He feels wrong-footed. He doesn’t like unease and questioning his abilities. Ten takes a sip of his own drink – warm milk with crushed elderberry petals – and simply waits patiently. “Jungwoo’s crystals, your potions, my drawings – they haven’t worked. His body is sicker, and it’s rejecting treatment at a rate faster than we had anticipated. Liyin is almost ready to try anything at this stage, and that puts Chenle in more danger.”

Doyoung draws comfort in the silence, knowing that Ten needs time to gather his thoughts before speaking. “What did you draw on him?” He finally settles with an innocuous question first to give Doyoung the chance to parse through everything in his exhausted state. “Witch hazel?”

He taps his fingers against the mug in a continuous rhythm. Runs his hand through his hair. “At first. It was more of a test really. Witch hazel doesn’t catch anymore once extensive rune work has already been done. There were a few old ones I saw on his body that I’ve seen in the restricted chapters of the Grimoire.” To think that the Zhongs must have been that desperate indeed. They had been so careful, he and Ten, to ease him into a comfortable arrangement so that when the time came, he would hardly feel the pain. But the runes had reversed all their hard work, and Chenle was barely holding on, hardly eating, sleeping, living.

“They’re not desperate.” Ten picks from his thoughts. It’s one of the gifts he inherited from Johnny, something that Doyoung didn’t have and that he resented every now and then. He’d learnt to block his mind over the centuries, but in his current worn state, he had let his barriers down, lending some relief from having to speak. “Someone is pushing them to do this. Chenle has been sick for a while already but the remedies so far have been more to treat his symptoms. The runes may have quickened the pace of the purification of his blood, instead of slowed it down. I suppose the blood was blacker this time, rather than red?”

Doyoung turns this over, linking it to the drawings he’d seen in the books in Chenle’s room, remembering the dead ravens, and how his blood seemed to shift into deeper shades of red, almost black, with each failure of his own gentle blooms. “You may be right. I’d thought that they were using darker magic to ease the turning, but it might have just been to fuel it.” It’s turmoil in his head now with this revelation, that all of his work may have been for naught. That they had been focusing on the wrong thing all along. “Goddess what do I do? Ten, he’s _dying_. Ahead of schedule. Maybe today, or tomorrow, next week. And it will be my fault.” He brings his burning head down to rest against his folded arms. He’s so so tired, but he can’t even begin to imagine the excruciating pain that Chenle must be going through.

“Liyin said he killed their newest conspiracy of ravens in his sleep. He didn’t even have to try. He just dreamt it and it happened. That’s why he refuses to sleep.” He lowers his voice. “He told me that he’s afraid that he’ll dream of killing his parents one day and that it’ll be too late to stop it. I think he tried to kill himself with a rune but his blood just rejected it and burnt his skin. He didn’t want to tell me but I know the symptoms of backfired magic. He made me swear not to tell Liyin.”

Ten’s face is pale. His had been too when he’d heard this terrible thing straight from the horse’s mouth. “Doyoung, you need to get Johnny.” Doyoung starts shaking his head violently. “No, Doyoung listen, you need him. We need him. There’s no one else and you know it.”

“We could just ask Taeil...” Anything, anyone but Johnny.

“And what, have Johnny rain floods and landslides on us for choosing his brother over him? Is that how much you don’t want to see him? You know that Taeil’s reign is almost up – he’ll be too weak to help come winter, if Chenle even lasts that long.”

Doyoung scowls. He knows all of this already too, but he’s being petulant for the sake of it. “I’ll...consider it. But it’s still early, the Autumn Equinox barely upon us. Still,” he presses on as Ten glowers next to him, “I’ll consider it. But if we are to awaken him, I’ll need more minerals. I exhausted my supply on Chenle.”

“So Taemin’s place then?” Ten beams. Doyoung suppresses a grimace. “Taemin’s.” He pushes himself off the table, joints shaky and brittle. He’ll really need sleep then.

***

Ten is a beauty, decked out in a charmeuse satin tunic and matching tights that shimmer with iridescent magnificence as he twists this way and that. His eyelids and cheeks are brushed with gold paint, lips pink-and-gold speckled. A yew leaf peeks out from above his collarbone – courtesy of Doyoung of course, to display his house and loyalty for everyone to see. He never tires of being put on show. But then who would, if one belonged to the Holly King? Doyoung’s solace has always been found in the earth, less in humans or even his kind. But still, he chose to share his gifts in the gentlest and yet most aloof way he knew how. His occupation allowed him to observe people from a distance, treating them, giving a bit of courage here, gathering pieces of shattered hearts there, all with simple strokes and a flourish of his talented hands.

Ten and Jungwoo were much the same, in a way. All of them are healers in their own right – Ten with his brews, and Jungwoo who could channel auras and communicate with animals. All broken souls who had been found and deemed worthy to be made powerful. And cursed, perhaps.

He feels like a hundred sharp needles are digging into his head, but he needs the minerals badly and the exchange can only be done at Equinox, the club and circle of refuge owned by Taeyong and Taemin. They both might have penned their names as co-owners, but everybody knows that Donghyuck is the one who wields the real power. He’s caught glimpses of him the few times that he’s come to get more materials, but Donghyuck never stays in one place too long, drawing out more whispers and fantastical stories about his loveliness and mysterious nature. The Lees have long been shrouded in mystery, even before crossing the threshold into witchcraft. He even concedes that they’re more frightening than the Zhongs – these half-witch and half-fey who wear layers upon layers of deception until sometimes it seems as if they too are lost in their own folds.

Doyoung cross the street to Neon City club, which is fittingly spelt with a neon signage. Looking at it is almost equal to an orbitoclast being driven into his head. His eyes are hooded as he flashes a smile at the bouncer who looks him up and down, eyes glazing a little over the low-cut black tank, coupled with matching black ripped jeans that hug his legs. A burgundy leather jacket hangs carelessly over his back, slipping a little to reveal his pale shoulders. He hikes it back up hurriedly once the velvet rope is lifted to allow him entry. How he detests putting his skin on show.

He weaves quickly through the crowd to a lounge room at the far end, stopping just before the threshold to rub the newest tattoo off his wrist. He’d drawn a small nightshade leaf to be rendered less visible in the human club, but once he steps into witch territory, he’ll not need it anymore.

Equinox itself resembles the lulling woods of the fey, scents of pine, fresh dew, sandalwood, sweet spring water, and walnut linger, dancers twirling languidly, all time seems to stop – an endless enchantment cloaking the air. How beguiling, if Doyoung weren’t as knowledgeable.

“Doyoung!” Guanheng screams into his ear, half-leaping onto him. “Are you here to see Taeyong? Is Ten with you?” He’s gangly – a mess of long arms and legs that he’s yet to properly grow into. The garish Hawaiian shirt completes his guise as an intoxicated teenager, though he is far from it. They must have had Guanheng take over Xuxi’s role tonight, he notes inwardly.

He returns the hug, but only because he has a soft spot for Guanheng, who holds his knives like he holds the violin. The one with the softer heart who hadn’t been spared from the Huang surname when he’d run from Macau with the other children of the moon during the purge. From the corner of his eye, he spots the other third of their band of brothers leaning against the doorway, eyes sharp and hands hovering above where he knows a set of iron and titanium blades rest sheathed. Renjun. The youngest but the most fearful. The only true Huang who knows his place as son, wolf, bodyguard, slave – who was born into it. Doyoung mourns nothing for him, because Renjun has none for himself. A pity for his brothers then, who will still bear the burden to lead. Renjun may be legitimate, but he is not the firstborn.

He recalls that Xuxi isn’t here tonight because he’s on loan as Jungwoo’s bodyguard, a favour granted by Taemin because of Doyoung’s unique and personal relationship with the proprietor.

“Yes, and no. Is Taeyong in the back with Taemin?” It’s too much effort to say that Ten would be arriving with Dejun later. He’s eager to get it over and done with, to whisk himself home and soak in a bath of lavender and sage, and scatter chamomile petals on his bed to lie in.

“You’re so business as always,” Guanheng pouts, making a face at the word business, but lets him go. Doyoung nods firmly at Renjun, who returns it with a tiny incline of his neck. He passes another open entryway that leads into another lounge, this one more raucous than the last. He’s always preferred to conduct his transactions amidst noise to drown out any conversation. The lounge is rimmed with red all over – red lanterns hanging from the low ceiling, maroon draperies, bright red couches. It’s dim, something that Doyoung also appreciates. Taeyong is at his usual post along the bar counter, sipping his drink and chatting with Taemin who’s playing bartender tonight.

“Doyoung!” Taeyong claps his shoulder and gestures at Taemin to procure a drink. “It’s been a while.” He doesn’t mention the dark circles under his eyes, something that Doyoung is extremely grateful for. “Taemin, Taeyong. Merry meet.” He bows his head.

They return it with a slight dip of their heads, but don’t greet him in kind. That is the fey in them, the refusal to salute to what they consider meaningless traditions and addresses. Taemin pushes a glass of lemon-squeezed water in front of Doyoung as he takes his seat next to Taeyong, placing two packets of ultramarine on the table for Doyoung to inspect before fastidiously wrapping them in brown paper. Its brilliant deep blue gleams purple under the red lamps. “Thank you,” he smiles, sliding it into his small pocketbook, draining his glass and making to get up.

Taeyong’s face falls. “You’re not staying? Ten is coming too, isn’t he?”

“No, I really must get going. I’ve had a long week.” He flashes a watery smile, wrapping Taeyong in a tight hug, hands coming up to play with his hair, knowing that it’s his favourite form of receiving affection. Taeyong hums, and nips playfully at his neck, his silver hair brushing against his ear. Doyoung lets out a soft laugh. “Don’t be a stranger for too long.” He knows his hermit tendencies all too well.

“I won’t,” he promises, and waves a quick goodbye to Taemin before turning to go back the way he came. He hopes Ten would have come by now to keep Guanheng occupied. He can feel the heaviness in his head return now that there aren’t people to focus on. It prickles and throbs interchangeably, and he’s worried that he could be on the brink of collapsing right here on home ground, so he hurries to get back to their shared apartment.

It’s when he’s two blocks from home that it happens. He’s passing under a streetlight, and it fizzles out into darkness. The next few lamps ahead do the same, and his senses are buzzing in warning, his wards humming around his person. He steadies himself, a hand sliding into the sleeve of his jacket, feeling the long, slender branch made of white oak – fashioned like a wand – hidden securely, the one he always carries on his person as both drawing tool and weapon.

There’s a sting against his wards and then a mass of black shadows descend. Doyoung doesn’t hesitate, striking out albeit blindly against it, feeling the shock travel up his arm when the oak hits home and meets flesh. There’s a screech, which Doyoung takes great satisfaction in.

“Choi,” he calls out tauntingly. He’d recognised them the minute he’d felt those black shadows – a symbol of their coven. They’re one of the more formidable families, and also one of the covens that Doyoung makes sure never to cross paths with. Petty and barbaric were their codes of honour, along with a frighteningly long memory.

“Doyoung.” They’re cloaked in black hoods, but he knows each of them by their voice. It’s Minho. “I wanted to talk to you, but you left early.”

“Fuck off, Minho,” he bites out, but he’s wavering on his feet. It’s only a matter of time before they notice, when he’ll be in too bad a shape to fend them off.

“I just want one tattoo, Doyoung, just one. Then I’ll leave you alone, a Choi’s honour.” He wipes the blood off his arm – so it _had_ been him who Doyoung had gotten a swipe at – smearing it across his lips and holding two fingers up.

“You have no honour.” He’d meant to aggravate on purpose, but realises it’s the wrong move, especially in his weakening state. May the Goddess be with me, he prays silently, futilely.

Minho’s eyes narrow. “Wrong answer, Doyoung.” And then they surge forward, floating as if they carry the wind beneath them, hands outstretched to claw, strangle, and maim. Doyoung throws out all the wards he can muster, but there are too many of them. He feels the hot blade of a knife sink into his upper arm and he screams blue murder, the sound ricocheting in his skull. Too much, too many; he is going to die tonight. He collapses to the cold concrete ground, scraping his hands across the rough gravel as he crawls away from his perpetrators, no power or energy to call upon.

“Doyoung,” Minho says as he follow him, amused. His looming figure casts shadows over him. “You’re so weak without Johnny. Beg, and maybe I’ll spare Johnny a body when he returns, if he ever will soon, that is.”

“I curse you to burn with the demons in the underworld,” Doyoung chants, spittle laced with blood dripping from his mouth and coating his teeth and lips an ugly red. “I curse you!”

Minho’s brows furrow with fury, and his face contorts into a horrid mask of hate, and he pulls a short sword from his cloak. “You chose wrong, Doyoung. I’m going to make you beg for your death.” He kicks out at his stomach and slices a deep laceration into his thigh. Doyoung howls.

He hears cackling above him, but the pain drowns out everything. Ten, he thinks. Jungwoo. I’m sorry. But he keeps his eyes open, staring up at his would-be murderer, refusing to give the last bit of pleasure in cowering. No, he will not. Minho raises his blade once more, but then he’s just as suddenly flying back and away from Doyoung, blade clattering to the ground.

More shadows swirl about the empty street, leaving him dizzy. He presses his forehead to the ground, feeling life drain from him with the blood loss. There are more screams, and a shadow surfaces here and there, until he realises that it’s cutting down his attackers, one at a time. He doesn’t understand, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s not going to survive.

“Run!” He hears someone say, and then it’s quiet again.

A hand crosses into his line of sight and then he feels an arm come around his waist, supporting him and helping him to sit up. Doyoung’s temper flares at the intrusive touch, but his body performs like a doll. Limp and mute. He can hardly see now through the pain pressing against his temples.

“Hey, stay with me. Let me help you.” His arm is warm against his body, and Doyoung senses something else different, but can’t shake the haze enough to pin it down. He doesn’t like it at all, being useless.

“Let go of me,” he breathes out.

The boy – it’s just a young man, really – pulls back. “You’re bleeding out,” he observes quite redundantly.

Like this, facing him, his mind clears enough for him to see it. Bad luck really, he thinks. He’s going to have to put on a strong act if he’s going to come out of this without more of his blood being shed. “I’m not even going to deign to thank you, now get out of my way, bloodsucker.”

The vampire’s face changes at the word, but he doesn’t rise to the bait. “You’re going to die from blood loss. I can heal you. Please let me heal you.” It’s sweet words, but vampires are good liars. Doyoung has been plenty acquainted.

“Your fucking glamours won’t work on me, now get the fuck away,” it’s hard to grit his teeth when he feels warm and sleepy all over.

He thinks that he’ll either be drained dry or left for dead to be found in the morning, but neither of those things happens. Instead, he feels a warm wetness on his thigh. “What –“ he starts weakly.

Vampire saliva. Of course. A healing ointment all on its own. This is dangerous on all counts, but he’s powerless to stop this. His head falls back onto the ground, and he hardly feels when the vampire moves onto his arm next, licking the wound clean and healed.

“Now I owe you,” he mutters bitterly.

The vampire looks up into his eyes and oh Cerridwen, his eyes hold the stars in them, violet and silver gleaming in the night, something he’s only read about. “Yes, you do,” he acknowledges calmly.

“You’re a Silverblood.” He whispers it with an almost-reverence. This makes it so much more complicated.

“And you’re a Seo.” The statement sounds oddly like reverence too, mixed in with awe and disbelief.

The two of them regard each other for a long moment, like wolves in a clearing, assessing their opponent, battling the thirst to attack without strategy, except Doyoung will clearly lose right now. The Silverblood picks up the white oak stick, examining it a little before placing it in Doyoung’s hands. Doyoung’s tiny bag is somehow still on his person, since he had slung it sideways across his body. “Where do you live? I’ll help you home.”

“I think you’ve helped enough,” he snaps. Like a wounded shark biting and snapping even when washed ashore, fins sliced out.

“Doyoung –”

“I never said you could address me as such.”

“- I’m Jaehyun.” He continues on smoothly. Something flashes in his eyes, like a storm that’s over almost after it begins. “Jung Jaehyun.”

Surnames were always a symbol of power for the Gwyddon. Doyoung admires the level of stupidity and boldness at sharing his surname, hating that it’s a gesture of goodwill because he knows Doyoung’s. “I didn’t ask for yours,” he says spitefully.

“You’ll need to know my name if you’re going to be indebted.”

He curses inwardly.

“Doyoung,” he lets the name drip swiftly from his lips again, and there’s a hint of intrigue. The fogginess has swept away, replaced with an overwhelming clarity now that he has an actual Silverblood before him. He would stay awake, but his eyes are already closing.

He feels himself being picked up, Jaehyun gently slipping an arm each under his back and knees, angling his head to rest on his shoulder. He wants to yell against the thoughtfulness. “If you don’t tell me where you live, I’ll have to bring you to mine.”

Fucking bloodsucker. “Two blocks down, upstairs of the flower shop.” He pushes into Jaehyun’s neck because the fatigue is seeping deep into his bones. Jaehyun remains an immovable statue, as if he knows that Doyoung would rather have an awful crick in his neck than have Jaehyun satisfied or shifting to accommodate him.

They’re on their way up through the back of the shop, Doyoung having unlocked the door by waving his hand to unfurl the poison ivy hooked around the knob.

“I heard what that witch said.”

He waits but sees that Doyoung isn’t able to summon the energy to speak, though he isn’t sure he would have either way. “I heard him ask for a tattoo from you. Seems like that’s a precious commodity because you were willing to die for it.”

Still Doyoung doesn’t answer, but a noticeable scowl crosses his features. “If you promise to draw on me, I’ll consider half the debt repaid.” It’s annoyingly dreadful that he only mentions half, especially since debts amongst their kind – for all non-mortals – are considered oaths that must be fulfilled and paid back.

Jaehyun enters the room that he’d indicated as his and lays him down on his bed carefully, cradling him to his chest as he does so. “I won’t draw on you,” he coughs out. He gazes into Jaehyun’s eyes, face an impassive block of wood. “I’ll do anything but that, just know that I will hate you all the while.”

Jaehyun’s face tightens but he draws back. “I’ll be back to discuss the terms.”

Doyoung’s mouth twists scornfully at that but his eyes flutter close. “Goodbye, Jung.”

***

Doyoung doesn’t mention Jaehyun to Ten or Jungwoo.

It wasn’t so much that he wanted his own secret to keep, but that there was no actual reason to bring it up. He’d met a being that was only the stuff of hushed whispers and legends, but it seemed further and further from reality the longer time went by. Also, telling them about a blood debt is something personal, and isn’t something he wants to talk about at length. Then he’d have to mention being attacked by the Chois just minutes from their front door. He’d scrubbed his skin three times over to wash off the blood and thrown his clothes out in the early morning when they were still asleep.

The three of them had come into their little shop earlier, putting their heads together to figure out the spells and ingredients needed to awaken Johnny. Slow, painstaking work, but necessary, for Chenle. Doyoung had travelled twice now to the Zhongs, and Chenle was worsening progressively. Ten had accompanied him during the latest trip. He had brewed a bottle of belladonna for him. It had been sickening to watch the boy throw back his head, forcing himself to swallow the black poisonous mixture, like black ichor trailing down his throat. Poison to fight poison, but which one was the lesser of two evils? Ten had cried when they had come home that night.

Doyoung is left to his own devices now, his powdered pigments transferred and packed into neat bottles, spidery drawings mid-sketch sprawled across the table. Usually, they would have closed up for the night by this hour, but Jeno had mentioned he might call around to pick up a bouquet of eucalyptus for Taeyong, and so he had yet to draw the shutters and flick the shop sign closed.

The tiny bell above the door tinkles but he feels an air colder than the frost outside settle over him. This isn’t Jeno.

“Sorry, we’re closed, come back tomorrow.” He doesn’t look up from his work.

“That’s funny, because your shop sign says you’re open.”

His heart clenches. “Bloodsucker,” he spits out.

“Doyoung,” Jaehyun returns easily. “Merry meet.” Under the bright light, his features are clearly handsome. His dark brown hair, a wink of ash and violet in his eyes, skin a light caramel. He’s wearing a simple black tee and blue denim jeans, with a baseball jacket thrown over to complete the ensemble of a college student. Doyoung hates how easy it is to be enchanted. But it’s just the fact that he’s more than a vampire that is making him react this way. Just because he’s a Silverblood.

The lights above flicker, mirroring the hurricane raging in his eyes. His hands curl tightly into fists, biting crescent moons into his palms. “Come to collect. I suppose?”

“No, just to see you.” He takes a seat on the chair opposite Doyoung’s, much to his chagrin. He picks up one of the loose sheets of paper, the one with numerous ivy, mistletoe, and holly. “Which one would look good on me?” The air of casualness rankles, makes his blood boil even more. “You can’t turn me away if I’m a paying customer, can you?”

“I’m told you I’m not drawing on you,” he grits out. He’s still standing, refusing to sit across him and witness that smug face up close. He looks across to the door, wishing fervently that he had gone with Jungwoo on his errands around town.

“Then I’m not leaving.” Doyoung curses.

“Jaehyun –“

“Oh, so now he deigns to call me by my name,” Jaehyun speaks it into the distance, addressing the cactus resting on the bookshelf in front of him.

“Jaehyun, I really just want to get this over and done with, so just fucking tell me –“

“Nope.” He interrupts him again. “I’m only here to see you, really. As for what I want, I’m looking at you.”

Anger and fear course through him, and Doyoung is so afraid that he’s going to lose what little control he has over his body. There’s a bubble of air covering his ears, and his legs are stiff from the force of keeping still. Jaehyun is going to see through him soon, and he won’t – can’t – have that. He moves to pick up one of the twigs resting on the desk. A simple thyme leaf would do the trick.

But Jaehyun’s fingers are nimble and quick, plucking the spray of wood-pens from the table. They’re gathered in a single hand in a second. _No_. Doyoung panics, and loses it. “You bastard!” He lunges at him, throwing his whole person on Jaehyun, but his strength as a vampire had already decided the outcome. It’s useless. Jaehyun has him in a vice-like grip, having dropped the pens to catch both his wrists as Doyoung pounded a series of punches on his chest. He kicks out at him instead, but that only makes Jaehyun spin them both against the wall, caging him in like a trapped animal. He tries to bring his knee up, but that too is quickly parried by Jaehyun pressing all his weight against him, and it’s chest to chest, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. Too close for Doyoung to properly handle.

“You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep on like this, and I only just healed you,” Jaehyun says, bending down to lean his forehead against his and meet his eyes. “You’re so beautiful,” he mumbles.

Doyoung’s traitorous heart picks up speed, which lifts the corner of Jaehyun’s mouth. Goddess, he wishes he’d slashed his oak branch at him a week and a half ago instead of at Minho. “I already told you, your glamours don’t work on me,” he makes to butt their heads together, but Jaehyun has a hold on his hair, yanking it back hard. Doyoung’s eyes are green, the colour of the evergreen holly trees that circle Johnny’s den, and they glow with a fire that rekindles Jaehyun’s half-dead heart.

“Who said I was?” Jaehyun replies, and closes the distance to kiss him.

Jaehyun’s lips are so warm on his, and Doyoung is melting. He kisses him back because he wants to, and has been wanting to ever since he’d brandished his hatred and scorn and vulnerability and Jaehyun had been mellow and full with a quiet power that rippled out, like rain over a balmy sea that crashed over like a tsunami.

His hips are suddenly bracketed by Jaehyun’s strong arms, rocking them closer together. He’s shocked at the high-pitched whine that he lets out when Jaehyun kisses his neck – the feeling so different from when Taeyong does it – and sucks onto the skin there. It’s too much. He feels the brush of his fangs nipping the soft skin and he snaps back to himself.

“Stop, Jaehyun, I can’t –” The push against his chest is half-hearted and weak-willed, but he needs to put breathing space between them, space for himself to think. Goddess, he needs to think. Think of the million reasons why this is wrong and how it could go even more wrong. Think of the danger he’s putting his brothers in.

“We can’t do this,” he hangs his head so he doesn’t get drawn in by those eyes again. “This is wrong.”

Jaehyun lifts Doyoung’s chin with his knuckle, and his head spins at the tenderness. “What is? This?” He kisses Doyoung’s cheek. He breathes in and out deeply. “Or do you mean this?” He captures his lips again, and he allows it for a moment.

It’s with a lot of reluctance that he wrenches himself from his hold, moving away from the wall. He doesn’t know how he’s going to fix this, now that he knows what it feels like to be afloat and grounded at the same time. “Stay away from me,” he coughs out. “You’re just a manipulative bloodsucker.”

He sees the hurt on Jaehyun’s face, but he smoothes it over in a heartbeat. He draws all the energy he can from the plants, letting it settle in the core of his being and wash logic and rationality over him, becoming Doyoung Seo, prince of the forest, heir to the Holly throne, son of the Mother Goddess. “I refuse to be your plaything and your slave just because I’m indebted to you.” Confusion crosses the vampire’s face. “You’ve got the best of the witches and the vampires. So you think you can just do with me what you do with all your victims, toy with me in your free time in the name of a personal game.” He waves his hand around him at the word this, and the potted plants hanging from the ceiling sway violently. He’s wobbly all over from feeling too much, and plops himself into his chair with as much dignity as he can muster.

“A game.” Jaehyun repeats blankly, and mirrors him, dropping back into his own chair, legs spread out comfortably in front of him. “You think I saved you and pried your schedule out of Minhyung for a game.”

Minhyung, Donghyuck’s betrothed. Goddess, how well-connected he must be in order to have spoken to either of them at close quarters about his family.

Doyoung scowls but knows that he’d be leaping into a trap if he bothers to correct him. “Games, fun, boredom, call it whatever you want,” he tries for flippancy, but it comes out slightly shaky. Jaehyun laughs.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you," he says so suddenly that it actually sounds honest. "I’ve been dreaming about having you draw on me since Kunhang told me what you can really do.” The use of Guanheng’s native name doesn’t go unnoticed, and the fact that he seems so well-acquainted with Equinox’s inhabitants.

“You know Guanheng?” He asks in surprise.

“I helped him, in Macau.” He slides another drawing towards himself, fingers tracing the convoluted lines of marigold petals. “They set his house on fire. The streets were a mess, there were so many people falling over each other trying to escape the fire and the silver bullets.” Doyoung listens intently. He’s never heard the full story of how the Wongs had reached Seoul, only that they had somehow survived the torture and long journey to collapse at their distant Chinese relatives’ doorstep.

Doyoung thinks that perhaps Guanheng isn’t the brittle soldier he makes himself out to be after all, but doesn’t say anything.

Jaehyun studies Doyoung’s drawings in detail. “These are beautiful.”

“You’ve said that twice now,” he points out dryly.

“Hmm?”

“The word. Beautiful. You’ve said that twice about different things.” Jaehyun probably drops the word as often as petals fall from wind-rustled flowers.

“That’s because everything about you is beautiful.” He says it like it’s the most obvious answer in the world, and Doyoung has an incredible urge to slap himself awake, so he busies himself with picking up the wood-pens on the floor, scattered when Jaehyun had let them go to kiss him. He feels a blush threaten to creep onto his cheeks and he quashes it quickly.

“You don’t need to say that to get me to give you a tattoo.” He thinks about his prickly nature beside Ten’s charisma and Jungwoo’s beauty, and for the thousandth time he reminds himself that Johnny picked him for his usefulness and affinity with the earth. “If you’re a paying customer, I’ll do it, but not like this. Not because I owe you. Not when you can use it however you like.”

Jaehyun gazes at him, full attention on his person now. “You think I would?”

Anyone would be foolish to think otherwise. “I think you’re just used to using your magic and pretty words to get what you want, blood debt aside.” The mistletoe wreath hanging over the door flutters, a signal that Jungwoo is rounding the corner.

“My brother’s coming back. You should leave.”

Jaehyun looks like he wants to say more, but there’s no time left, so he whisks himself out the door, vanishing in a flourish.

_Please stay away_, Doyoung whispers, but only half of him hopes Jaehyun hears it.

***

Jungwoo packs a collection of amethyst and tourmaline gemstones into two pouches each, carefully securing them with a knot at the top. He ties a necklace with woven with garnet stones around his neck, making sure to slip a lapis lazuli ring on his thumb. This is hardly excessive, because they’ll need to channel as much positive energy and strength as they can when they awaken Johnny. “Here, let me tie one on for you,” he offers when Doyoung sits down next to him to work. “I smoked them with eucalyptus and sage under the full moon last week.”

Doyoung picks up his hand, turning his right thumb this way and that, the lapis lazuli glinting as light pierces it at different angles. “Lapis lazuli?” He asks. The pretty colour certainly matches Jungwoo’s pale skin and blonde locks.

Jungwoo chuckles and shakes his head. “No, I fashioned one out of moss agate for you. It brings out the colour of your eyes.” He pulls out the piece of five stones embedded in a cuboid structure, held together by a simple brown cord.

“I don’t think crystals are meant to be worn for cosmetic reasons,” he teases, because he knows that Jungwoo had chosen this stone for exactly a pragmatic reason – to imbue him with physical stamina and align his aura to the earth. Jungwoo huffs but ties it around his neck, fastening it with a dead knot. Once done, he wraps his long arms around Doyoung’s neck from behind, burying his nose in his hair and sighing softly.

“You’ll be okay, right?” He mumbles. He had been bound only a century ago, and sometimes his young age shows during periods like this. He is new to the ways and etiquette required of being a Seo still. “I worry sometimes when you and Ten come home with blood all over your hands. I always think...” Doyoung knows he’s biting his lip as he considers his next words.

“It’s not like that. Not anymore,” he assures him quickly with as much conviction he can inject into his voice. He covers Jungwoo’s arms with his own, leaning back to bump his head back against Jungwoo’s affectionately. “I’m sorry that you have to see the blood, it’s only because of Chenle.” He turns so he can properly face him. Jungwoo is hardly a boy in terms of age, but he’s still very much Doyoung’s charge and their youngest, still so very young considering the centuries that he and Ten have over him. “We don’t kill anymore, never again.” He kisses his forehead, pulling him into a long, warm hug. It’s one of the littlest things that he can actually give Jungwoo right now. Jungwoo exhales loudly.

“Okay,” is all Jungwoo says, but his hands tighten their hold around his body. “Okay.”

When he releases Doyoung, he presses a holly wood-pen into his hands. “Could you touch up my tattoo please?” Doyoung nods.

“I can do that.” He turns his slim wrist over, running his thumb over the fading mark, mistletoe because his binding ceremony had been around the Yule season. A mortar and pestle lay next to his pens, but he has a ready batch of malachite green from yesterday. Pouring a few droplets of linseed oil into the powder, he mixes the paste well and dips the stick into ground malachite, going over the lines slowly, pressing hard into his skin. A bit of blood trickles from his wrist, but Jungwoo doesn’t flinch or say a word.

They each have one symbol marking them as Johnny’s coven, and it has to be one of the evergreen plants. Johnny’s reign lasts from Midwinter to Midsummer, but forests, greenwoods, flora are his sources and conduits of power. Doyoung’s own is a holly leaf that circles his left fourth finger. Ten had chosen a more obnoxious setting for his - a sprig of yew and its red berries spread across the left side of his neck.

He puts the finishing touches – a murmur of a prayer to seal the mineral to his skin. He can only use natural ingredients, from rocks or the ground, in order for his spells to take effect. “There, all done.” He wipes the blood with a wet cloth. He’d dotted in some red into the touch-up too - ground red hibiscus to accentuate his delicate nature and beauty, two of his strongest assets. Jungwoo’s only been with them for ten decades, but he wonders how he would ever cope if he was Jungwoo, absorbing everyone’s emotions into himself, a constant ball of fury, shame, love, hope, despair, hate, happiness roiling within him, and yet he only gives out tranquillity and strength. This is his gift from Johnny.

_“What’s yours?” Jungwoo had asked after he had performed the ritual that had bound them to each other for eternity and he had discovered this strange new set of abilities. “Mine? Pan’s voice.” And he had said no more beyond that. It was only when all four of them were riding through the green woods on giant stags in Wales months later that Jungwoo understood. His voice was like Pan’s lyre, luring and enchanting all life however he wished. When he sang, flowers bloomed or wilted. Animals bowed or pranced. It was to his every whim and fancy, and when Johnny realised that humans could be as equally bewitched, he had commanded a thousand subjugations and deaths._

Doyoung never sings anymore after his King had gone to sleep – never sings like he did at in Caer Arianrhod – and slumbered for the last fifty years.

Jungwoo kisses his cheek in gratitude. “I’m going to Equinox – Yukhei needs to be stationed there tonight, and I know you and Ten were planning on visiting Chenle at midnight.” Fragile, was what the Lees had said of Jungwoo. Liable to explode from emotions that flowed and sifted through him as abruptly as the sands of time. “He needs a bodyguard when he’s alone,” they had insisted, and Johnny had accepted it because they were still half-witches, still their own people. But Johnny had confided in Doyoung that he might have been a changeling, only that he had secured Jungwoo fully to witchcraft before the Lees could take him under their wings themselves, which was why they were wary of the immense power potentially brimming underneath, this power that was now Johnny’s to mould and direct as he pleased instead of what they felt might have rightfully been theirs. Ownership and belonging were the cornerstones of the survival of all of them immortals.

“Yukhei?” He grins.

“He prefers it,” Jungwoo shrugs. “It makes him feel a bit closer to home.” And who is Doyoung to argue with that, when they are all orphans themselves?

***

Each time he leaves the Zhongs, a renewed sense of dread washes over him. When the boy had only been able to croak out a few words before black blood had spilt from his throat, Doyoung had known that this was irreversible. They were fighting a battle already lost.

It’ll be so much worse having to explain this new development to Ten and Jungwoo, so he decides to take a long detour through the woods that rest next to the Zhong’s property. It’ll give him space and time alone to himself, a peace that he’s not had in a while.

The woods are chilly, and he’s only wearing a thin shift – his preferred garb when he performed more complex spells. He toes off his shoes, dropping his bag by a tree when he’s deep enough in the woods to hear just the sound of crickets chirping in bushes, leaves rustling in the wind. It’s a balm to his soul. He breathes in, taking in all the fresh, raw smells that only the earth can provide. Here is where he can unfurl his power and senses unbidden, without having to hide. He twirls in a circle, coaxing the forest to give him its protection and blessings with his circle dance. With nothing more than the thin clothes draped on his person, nothing tying him to any era, Doyoung looks timeless. Like he belonged to any and every century – old and young all at once. He revels in a feeling so freeing. He raises his arms up to perform another series of spins, but then an odd cold runs up his spine, and he knows he’s not alone anymore.

“I know you’re here,” he says, confidence resonating in the open air. The woods are both his sanctuary and his army. He is their prince, his to command.

The perpetrator glides out under the moonlight and Doyoung draws a breath. “You followed me.”

Jaehyun doesn’t deny it, simply walking until he stands directly before him. “I’ve not seen the dance of the druids in a long while. It was breathtaking,” he says, stepping even closer.

Doyoung immediately takes a step back. “Were you spying on me?”

“I was not spying on Zhong Liyin or her son, if that’s what you’re asking. I followed you because we didn’t get to speak much, that other time.” The casual way he had dropped Lady Zhong’s name irks him.

“I have nothing to say to you,” he clenches his teeth, clamps his fists to his sides. He’s afraid of what he might unleash if he doesn’t repress it.

“Prince Doyoung.” Doyoung’s eyes snap up in surprise. “You are a prince are you not? Because you belong to Youngho’s coven.” Doyoung supposes he is, but hearing the title on another’s tongue is strange to his ears, and even stranger still to hear Johnny’s foreign name.

“What’s it to you?” He hisses out. He isn’t a prince any more than Ten or Jungwoo, without a king. Perhaps when he was a newly-made witch, when they roamed freely through cities and blessed the fields and hills and forests with their magic, when religion meant a respect and worship of nature and life.

Jaehyun bows once and stretches his right hand out. “May I have the honour of a dance, Prince Doyoung?”

He breathes out a scoff. “Unless you’ve come back with a reasonable idea for payment, please get lost.” He’s almost begging now.

“Why can’t you just accept that I just want you?” He asks, not unkindly. “That I just want your time.” He takes one of his curled hands, prying them open and slipping their fingers together to twine them with each other. Doyoung sucks in a breath at the contact but he lets it happen because Jaehyun’s hand is warm. He’s even more mesmerising under the light of the moon, a child of the night indeed.

He decides that he can afford a response that doesn’t spill from his lips as a rebuke. “Because. You can’t possibly mean that. I’m not good-looking, I’m bad-tempered, and I don’t like people. There’s nothing about me that’s definitively beautiful.” He says it matter-of-factly, like how the Earth revolves around the sun, a fact, a truth.

“But you won’t leave, will you? You’ll keep on appearing as long as I keep refusing you.” It’s infuriating, how little he can actually do. He could strangle with the vines around the branches. He could have the thorns pierce skin, ripping into flesh. But it wouldn’t matter because he can heal himself instantaneously, and matched against Jaehyun his strength might as well be that of a human’s.

A second barely passes but Jaehyun has his other hand intertwined in his other as well in an instant. “Then don’t,” he whispers, and then he’s pulling him into his arms faster than he can process the movement, arching his back to kiss him deeply.

Just bliss, emptying his mind and feeling the vampire’s cold skin against his, mouth warm in his. He gives himself to this, throwing both arms around Jaehyun’s neck, clinging tightly to him.

“I thought you were beautiful the first time I saw you, when you were so helpless against those witches but still baring your teeth.” He steadies Doyoung with a strong press of his palm just above the curve of his back. “You were even lovelier when you thought I was going to attack you and drain you dry and still you struck out at me.” Here, he presses a tiny kiss to his nose. Doyoung can hardly believe what he’s hearing. “And you’re striking now when you’re fighting with your own feelings.” Jaehyun pulls back a little to lock eyes with his. “I’m going to kiss you now,” he whispers, cupping Doyoung’s cheek.

It’s fire when he licks into his mouth, and his body is hot all over where Jaehyun is running his hand over the side of his body, the other hand still pressed to his jaw. His knees give way, but Jaehyun catches him, lowering them to the damp grass and lying atop him. He is relentless, mouth pressing bruising after bruising kiss, sucking on his lower lip, swirling his tongue around his. He’s never been kissed like this in his life. “Jaehyun,” he sighs softly as he mouths open kisses on his neck, and he’s reminded of their first kiss in the shop nearly two weeks ago.

“How does it feel?” He muses aloud, more to himself than to Jaehyun.

“How does what feel, darling?” Jaehyun licks his ear and Doyoung keens.

“To be bitten,” his cheeks flare when Jaehyun smiles above him. Doyoung’s almond-shaped eyes are blown wide open, lips shiny and cherry red from being kissed too many times. So, so pretty, Jaehyun thinks.

“Would you want me to?” His eyes are hooded, and he looks down on Doyoung with such want. How could he not, with those green eyes that put him in a trance, that stuffy demeanour begging to be cracked open and bared for him and himself only.

Doyoung looks away. His chest is close to bursting, and it’s taking everything in him to stay and allow himself to be held under Jaehyun’s strong body braced above his. He’s a prince in this forest, the tufts of grass and lichen spreading comfort and warmth underneath him, yet he feels so vulnerable. _Someday, maybe_, he thinks, and it’s a frightening thought, that he’s subconsciously considering more days together with him.

He feels a finger trailing over the side of his face, turning it back to face him. Jaehyun doesn’t press for his answer, but leans down to kiss him instead. Thirty-one. Doyoung thinks he should stop counting before he faints.

“I could kiss you for hours.” His hands are feather-light when they dance along his bare leg – Doyoung had forgotten that he was wearing something so revealing. They brush along over his shift, sliding from his thigh to in-between his legs. Doyoung chokes, hands pushing against Jaehyun and legs squeezing together on instinct.

This makes Jaehyun smirk, and he throws back a loud laugh, his deep voice echoing throughout the woods. Doyoung wants to shrink into himself, in shame, or in fear, or maybe both. He doesn’t know what he wants, but at the same time, he does. He thinks that if Jaehyun touches him there he might just burn the forest. But just as quickly Jaehyun is rolling unexpectedly onto the ground next to him and faces him, throwing a leg over his body, keeping him close, as if he knows that Doyoung would run if he wasn’t touching him. Doyoung, for his part, doesn’t flinch, but doesn’t move to touch him either. It’s still almost a fever dream that Jaehyun is here, and has been kissing him senseless for the past fifteen minutes.

“How old are you?” Doyoung has been wondering this ever since he spoke of Minhyung as one would speak of an old friend. It’s quiet when he waits for Jaehyun to speak, and in the near darkness the trees shake and seem to be whispering a cacophony of things, hushing and whisper-shouting over each other. Doyoung wants to know what they think of Jaehyun, but he’s shut them out for so long that Doyoung is scared to try. Perhaps they might have forgotten who their prince is.

“Nearly five hundred years.” Jaehyun touches his cheek, and he looks at him like he just wants to kiss him again. Doyoung wants to, too. “But as a Silverblood, only a century.” He fumbles around until he locates Doyoung’s hand, bringing it up to his lips. Doyoung keeps his fingers there, pressing down on those plump lips, touching the Cupid’s bow, sliding pitter-patter over his cheeks, his eyes. Jaehyun gives a swift kiss to the inside of his wrist.

“And your speciality?” Like witches, Silverbloods had varied magical affinities, developed after they became half and half.

“Fire. But it’s nothing as beautiful to look at unlike yours.”

He feels the tips of his ears pink.

“So, five hundred years…” He’s a little awed, and it probably shows. “Is that why you talk about people like Lady Zhong and the Lees with such a careless informality?” He wonders whether they roam in covens or by themselves; Silverbloods number by the hundreds only, and vampires are ruthless creatures who outlive one another purely by survival of the fittest. Rarely are they able to stay in one coven, in one place for long.

“You talk about them with such reverence, but you’re not so young yourself – you’re three centuries old,” Jaehyun counters, head cocking to the side.

“You seem to know a lot about us, or you seem to have managed to get a lot out of Minhyung,” he sniffs. “And don’t think you’ve escaped my question.” It’s his turn to roll onto Jaehyun, and he admires the view of Jaehyun utterly at ease lying under him, hair fanned out, silver eyes gleaming, dimples carved deep into his cheeks, mouth curved upwards with a disarming smile - the very picture of a hunter who knows how to win his prey. Jaehyun’s hands come up to hold his hips, fingers toying at his bare thighs where the shift has shucked up. Doyoung shivers, but keeps his voice steady. “I’m being serious, Jaehyun.”

“I’ll answer all your questions, love, if you let me take this off.” He pulls at the thin material, and heat spreads across Doyoung’s face. “Goddess, you’re so frustrating,” he groans, and moves to slide off Jaehyun, but Jaehyun merely surges up to crash their lips together again, nearly toppling him off his lap that Doyoung has to steady himself with a hand around his neck and another on his waist. “I’ll get an answer out of you soon,” he says determinedly before pushing him backwards, climbing on top of him once more.

Doyoung finds himself drifting off midway through Jaehyun mouthing along his shoulder, but makes sure to grip onto his shirt, an unspoken plea to stay.

“I would,” he murmurs, half of his mind already lulled to sleep by the softness of the ground and the warm body next to his.

“Hmm?”

“Want you to bite me,” he struggles to get the words out. “Want you…someday,” is what Jaehyun hears, but it’s because he breathes the last sentence so softly that most of it are mouthed rather than said, that even with his heightened senses he misses it. But it is enough for him, for now.

“Sleep,” he kisses his beautiful witch again, tucking his chin on top of his head.

***

When Doyoung comes to, he is still in the forest. The sun is barely winking above the horizon, so it must still be relatively early. The crisp smell of morning dew fills the air. He reaches out to touch a fingertip to a blade of grass, and it tingles. How he’s missed nature in one of the most natural forms, from the coat of warmth a cool mountain breeze can bring, or that same feeling condensed into a singular touch of a leaf.

He closes his eyes, lying back down onto the ground, feeling the earth pulsing beneath him. Heavenly. A flutter of the wind and he’s being kissed. His eyes shoot open, and they’re so close, forehead to forehead, that he might just be able to count the number of silver stars in his eyes. “You’re still here?” He leans up on both elbows as Jaehyun settles for straddling his hips between his legs, resting his hands behind him on Doyoung’s thighs, watching him.

“Mmm,” he moves to brush his dark hair away from his face. “You’re very pretty when you sleep.” Doyoung blushes and shakes his fringe back over his eyes, looking down. Jaehyun’s laugh is a contrast to his deep voice – it tinkles like a shower of wind chimes in a mild breeze, like Jungwoo’s crystals that he wears on his person all the time, hitting each other lightly as he moves.

“Do you even sleep?” He thinks they do, but what he knows of vampires might not be the same as that of Silverbloods. Jaehyun has proved himself so different, after all.

“I do,” he says, but he doesn’t continue like Doyoung expects him to. Instead, he leans back down, pulling the collar of his shift to one side to lick a stripe up his neck. Doyoung gasps loudly.

“Jaehyun!” He nearly screams when Jaehyun rolls his hips onto Doyoung’s, mouth still clamped onto his neck and sucking hard. His hand flies up to pull on his hair hard. “Jaehyun,” he says firmly.

Reluctantly, the vampire lifts up and off his neck, but plants a kiss on his lips.

“It’s nearly dawn,” he says, changing the subject. “You should go.” He hardly wants Jaehyun to turn into ash right now. But he simply stays where he is, on Doyoung’s lap, humming softly as he brackets his hands around his slim waist, kneading through his shift at the skin. As if he doesn’t care.

Now Doyoung pushes at his chest in panic. “The sun is rising! You’ll burn!”

“Wouldn’t you want that though? Then you won’t owe me anymore.” But he climbs off Doyoung, gliding to Doyoung’s bag of precious tools that he’d quite forgotten about during the course of the night. He rifles through the contents quickly, drawing the oak pen out. He handles it gingerly, twirling it between his fingers at lightning speed that it looks like a violin’s bow between his slender hands. He could have been a pianist, Doyoung thinks, and he imagines being seduced by concertos in a giant theatre.

“You’re cruel,” Doyoung murmurs.

Jaehyun just smiles lightly and sits cross-legged across him, his movement so fluid and quick and it scares him a little, at the amount of power running through his veins, and how easily he could snap his neck to the side and drink from him if he truly wished it. He could demand for his blood, force it from him.

“Watch,” he whispers, and he holds up his right hand, stabbing the device through the centre of his palm. Doyoung screams in horror, watching silver rivulets trickle down his hand onto his wrist, collecting into a pool of glimmering silver on the brown soil. The puddle seeps into the ground, and in a second the patch of grass turns silver. Doyoung lets out a noise of surprise, and puts a hand to the painted blade. Colours and whispers wash over him and he sees so many things, but most of all he sees pure sunlight. He removes his hand slowly, collecting his thoughts.

“I don’t know how, but your blood...there is a sort of sunlight in it. It’s countering the actual vampiric blood,” he realises. “You can’t burn,” he says incredulously. This is another of the Silverbloods’ abilities so carefully guarded and hidden. Jaehyun nods, grimacing a little as he pulls the pen out. It must still hurt, pulling it through muscle and bone.

“You didn’t have to stab yourself to show me,” he chastises as he reaches out to cradle Jaehyun’s hand to himself, trying to observe the damage. The hole has already closed in the time he’s taken to speak. The desire for this buried knowledge wedges deeper into his heart. “You could have just walked out into the sun and that would have been enough.”

“But you wouldn’t have seen what my blood can do,” he bites his lip at that, as if he’s said too much.

Doyoung stares for a long moment at that, reading between the lines. “You wanted to show me that you trust me,” he says slowly, his mind reeling and heart beating rapidly like the flapping of a hummingbird’s wings as he says each word, as if saying it out loud makes it more of a fact than a guess.

“I trust you,” Jaehyun says, so heartbreakingly easily, and there’s a hint of something more behind that sentence. It makes him want to run home and draw a circle of nettle around him and hide within it forever.

“You don’t know me.” It comes out brusque and harsh. The need to protect himself is so strong, his wards folding up and around him as he wars an internal battle with himself.

“Doyoung.” Jaehyun’s face darkens, and he hates that he put it there.

“You just want to think that you can, but my time spent is just a debt being repaid.” The lies, the hurting, it comes so naturally, honed from years and years of training to turn his feelings to stone at a snap of a finger.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? My time? How long until it’s enough? A month, a year? I’ll give you that then. But just know that I don’t want you like that.” He stands quickly, brushing stray leaves from his clothes.

“You’re lying,” Jaehyun almost sounds insistent. “You’re doing this to shut yourself out from me,” he says as he too stands. They’re facing each other, and it’s like when they were outside Equinox except he senses that this time if he asked, Jaehyun would well and truly stay away. And Doyoung has always been selfish.

“I’m not.” He swallows a lump in his throat. “I won’t owe you, Jaehyun.” He twists the front of his shift, and Jaehyun seems to understand, but he doesn’t speak, waiting for Doyoung to finish, knowing that he needs to.

“_I cannot_.” And Jaehyun nods as if he expected it. He probably did.

He takes Doyoung’s face in both his hands, thumbs rubbing soothing circles on his cheeks and brushing over the underside of his eyes before tipping his head up. They exchange a few soft kisses before Jaehyun steps back, although it’s far from what he wants and where he wants to be.

“Blessed be,” he whispers, a little forlorn, and then it’s just Doyoung standing in the middle of the glade, the sun rays illuminating the woods in warm beams of light.

***

Preparing for the Autumn Equinox was never a simple ritual, but never as complicated as it is now that they have to blow sleep from his mind and draw their king out of his fifty-year slumber.

“Do you think he dreams of us?” Jungwoo asks, hopeful and a little lovesick as they fold ships made from chrysanthemums and lotuses. They’ll need to make a few hundred of these to outline the circle.

“He probably has nightmares of us running wild without him,” Ten grins. “Or wishing that he could join in.”

“I miss him,” Jungwoo says. “I still don’t really understand why he’s gone for as long as he has,” he mourns reproachfully and crushes the paper unknowingly in his hands a little as he says this. For a newly-inducted witch, fifty years to be in a leaderless coven is long. It is certainly unusual, because most have High Priests or Priestesses to govern on a daily basis, but the Seos are different. Because Johnny isn’t a channel to the gods or goddesses. He is a god, a king. So he has never believed in practising these typical Wiccan practices.

“It’s his choice to make, Jungwoo,” Doyoung sighs.

“But he’s just sleeping under the ground!” It would have sounded half-hysterical and unnecessary to Doyoung and Ten if they didn’t love Johnny in much the same way - all-consuming, over-passionate, and inexplicable at that.

“He is,” he replies curtly, even though he’s felt the same unease and hurt creep into his heart every now and then. _What did we do that you had to leave?_ Maybe if Johnny had disappeared to travel the world with Yoona, he might have still been able to justify it as a long-term distraction. But this, this was unprecedented. It made the three of them the only culpable reason, and he hates the constant guessing and endless roundabout thinking that always circles back to a single thought: maybe he’s tired of us, maybe he doesn’t love us anymore.

“He is,” he repeats again, in an effort to vanquish the disparaging thoughts. It wouldn’t do for them to know he’s felt the same doubt. “He’s thousands of years old. If he wants to sleep under the earth, then he will sleep under the earth.”

“We shall see him soon, love,” Ten says, voice fond as he pats his thigh. “It’ll be his first equinox in five decades, and we’ll be sure to give him a proper welcome. He will love it.”

Jungwoo only nods, taking up another palmful of leaves to fold, the three of them working in companionable silence once more. They have a little over a week to the equinox, but so much to do.

The Gwyl Canol Hydref - Autumn Equinox - is the shifting of the tides of power and earthly energies, where the Oak King bows in a subservient fashion to his twin, the Holly King. When Gwyl Canol Haf – the Summer Solstice – arrives, it will be Taeil’s power that waxes. Both are two sides of the same coin, creating that balance for the world of men and immortals alike.

Doyoung personally loved the period when Johnny ruled, because it was when they were out riding and hunting, the wind whipping through their hair, unstoppable and invincible in their combined power. They were – are – a coven to be feared. They would laugh as they sped through the woods on their stags, Doyoung sometimes riding pillion with Johnny so that he could lend his strength to his king during their hunts. He would wrap his hands around Johnny’s waist, letting tendrils of magic flow between them as Johnny lured and cut down human soldiers who dared to trespass into the crags of the deep Welsh woods, leaving a trail of red in his wake. And Doyoung had celebrated it. He had dipped his fingers in the thick blood, using it to paint the mouth of forests and temples with warnings and tales of the Holly King. He had used it to paint their foreheads, cheeks, arms and bodies with flowers for protection, unrivalled strength, deceit. They had each looked like the warriors and harbingers of death that they were, soaked in the blood of the enemy. But now, he worries. Fifty years is neither long nor short, but it is enough that he feels a rift, and he’s not sure how wide this rift is or if it’s just Johnny from whom he feels distant.

Another hour passes by as they work, and Ten moves to prepare a dinner of bread, cheese and freshly-plucked mulberries from their garden – a staple and one of their favourites when they had lived in Europe for a time before moving to Seoul and changing their names. Doyoung pours them a jug of sweet honey, lemon, and crushed mint. This is how they’ve always spent their evenings, eating together and talking about their day.

“Kun asked about you again,” Jungwoo says to Ten. “I told Taeil about Johnny.” Ten nods, popping a few berries into his mouth. Kun was Taeil’s coven and blood, just as they were Johnny’s. As Johnny’s golden twin, Taeil had a right to know, and to prepare accordingly.

“I’ll pay him a visit tomorrow, he’s been wanting to go over some brews for Yuta.”

Jungwoo nods, blowing on his tea before sipping it carefully. “I told him you might. He misses you.” Kun is nearly as old as both Doyoung and Ten, having been claimed by Taeil just after they had. They are blood cousins, and often rely on each other for an exchange of ingredients and spells. Kun is truly a Goddess-send, particularly to Doyoung, because he is every bit as calm and collected as he is himself, something that he knows Kun appreciates and admires too, particularly with brothers like Yuta and Ten who could be downright handfuls and disasters in their own right.

They eat quickly, moving the plates to the sink and pulling their work back onto the table. They’re working against time. It’s past midnight now, and he hears the grandfather clock chime to mark the hour, and it rings in his head for the rest of the night as they work into the wee hours of the morning.

***

Ten accompanies Doyoung when he announces his next visit to the Zhong’s. “I need to make sure you don’t faint,” he had said, and that had been that. Doyoung is secretly relieved to have him there as an anchor of sorts, because he doesn’t know how long he can hold out until he breaks from seeing Chenle vomit another round of black blood.

It’s still daylight when they arrive, Ten having insisted on going earlier so that they could be with Chenle for longer. It’s always Ten who slices his hand on the serpent’s tooth if they go together, and today is no different. The door opens for them and the servants have grown so used to their presence that they simply make way as they pass, heads bowed respectfully low. Death and misery seems to cling to the air, and it’s almost the same feeling that Doyoung has when a carefully cultivated plant withers a little bit everyday even under his care. Ten slips a hand into Doyoung, clutching it tightly as they navigate the winding corridors on the east wing of the mansion. They’d moved him out of his bedroom into one of the larger guest rooms, when the sight and smell of dead ravens and blood still lingered even after the staff had scrubbed their hands raw. Doyoung notes that he’s also been moved to the upper floors so that fewer people can hear him screaming in the dead of the night.

Lady Zhong is by Chenle’s side when they enter; she never leaves his side these days. Her usually bright eyes are instead clouded with dark shadows, skin sallow and sunken, but her figure when she rises from the bedside is as statuesque and authoritative as always. She is a proud woman, a Zhong, even after everything. Her eyes flit to their joined hands but it’s so quick and then she’s dipping her head into a short bow.

“Merry meet, Doyoung, Ten,” her voice is weary with worry and fear, fraught with hopelessness. They both greet her in kind and then they’re crossing wordlessly to Chenle’s side. He’s shivering even under all the blankets, but his skin is clammy and sweaty. Oh, Chenle, Doyoung thinks as his dull eyes rest on his two doctors who have failed him. If I could do anything to take your place. He draws another series of belladonna up his arms, as has become customary with each visit. They’re really only delaying the inevitable.

“We’re going to wake Johnny,” Ten says to break the silence. “We are going to wake Johnny, and have him preside over the transference and purification of his blood. As king and High Priest, he will ensure that no further harm and pain is suffered by him.” Lady Zhong’s mouth falls open but no words come forth. To awaken one of the kings was an honour beyond any other, but it also meant a debt greater than the one Doyoung owed.

“My Lords...” she drops to the floor on one knee in an almost laughable intimation of allegiance but Ten is quick to catch her by her elbows. Ten, unlike Doyoung, has never gotten used to the range of titles accorded to those of the Seo bloodline, and he hopes he never will. It feels too forced, too hollow – because he is simply a witch who crossed paths with a lord of the earth, of the seasons, a horned god, revered and feared.

“No, my Lady, you need not bow so,” he says quickly. “Chenle is worth this much.”

“He isn’t,” she insists, as she stands right before her son. “He isn’t.” It’s a lie that must be said, no matter how painful for her to stoop this low. They don’t blame her - they know only too well what it’s like to incur a blood debt with Johnny.

“Perhaps you should go and rest in your rooms, Lady Zhong,” he suggests, but all three know that it isn’t a suggestion now that the lines have been drawn, and she’s been reminded of her place. It’s been so easy to forget when they appear a mere trio of healers Doyoung-Ten-Jungwoo without the overwhelming presence of King. “We will be with Chenle until nightfall.” And with that, Doyoung resumes his work on marking up Chenle’s arms, re-shading bits of four-leafed clovers here and there.

They know when she leaves the room; they can feel her aura grow steadily weaker the father she walks.

“Kill me,” Chenle says, voice scratchy from misuse and barely above a whisper. Doyoung senses that he’s been waiting to say this for a while. “It would be –“

“So much easier,” Ten finishes. He’s reading his mind, saving Chenle from speaking, from expending more energy, and most of all from saying something he cannot retract.

“So much easier...too painful...tired,” Ten rattles on, skipping full sentences. He must be translating from Mandarin.

They lapse into silence as Ten listens to Chenle, Doyoung searching for any hint as to what they’re saying to each other, but he gets none.

“He’s asking if you can promise him to kill him the way he suggested.”

A peaceful rest. His eyes fill with tears as he takes his hand in his. “What you’re asking of me...it is something your family will never forgive. It is going against what the gods have laid out for you. With Johnny you might have another fighting chance.” He doesn’t know what exactly Johnny can promise, but if he could erase his pain, then he would. But he didn’t know how to do that on his own without having Chenle also die by his hand.

Chenle’s fingers tighten where they grasp onto Doyoung’s. He’s shaking with every movement and every breath. “Please,” he croaks out and black lines of blood streams out of his mouth. He falls back into the pillows, exhausted. Doyoung’s heart breaks.

_“This prophecy – it is my death sentence. I am merely a vessel for the witches to rise. I will bleed dry from the inside out while my blood once black and pure will be drunk by all covens and they will be immortal.”_ Doyoung remembers when he had first met the deified boy-witch all those months ago. Up until then, he had only heard whispers of his name, this boy who would bring a new generation of witches, witches who would be triumphant over one of the greatest battles – Death – forever.

This is a gift that up until now is bestowed upon the two kings and their bloodlines only. After Chenle’s death, it will belong to everyone.

“What is it, Chenle? What did you ask my brother to do?” Ten takes up the other side of the bed, Chenle’s other hand in his. He swipes the blood from his lips and rubs it between his fingers. But the boy remains still, merely closing his eyes.

“He’s thrown up his mental shields,” Ten says, half-shouting. He rounds on Doyoung. “Doyoung, what did he ask you to do?”

Doyoung too, has put up his barriers. If Chenle wants it kept secret, he will respect it. “Ten,” he says, and that single word conveys everything.

“Doyoung, you cannot defy this prophecy. The covens will breathe hellfire on us. We absolutely must not stand in the way of this, even thinking to stop it is high treason. You will damn us all if you do.”

“We are already damned, Ten!” He hisses out, and it bounces off the quiet room, Chenle’s intermittent breathing heavy and loud in the silence. Ten squares his shoulders defensively.

“You said that Liyin sped up the process with runes – what if they want him to die during Samhain? According to the prophecy, he is meant to die on his birthday, exactly a month before Yule, to give one month for his blood to be purified under exactly one moon phase. Think about it, Ten. Everything has not gone according to the timeline enacted by our Mother Goddess for a while.”

To die a month before his actual birthday instead...to carry out the ritual on Samhain itself when the veil between worlds was the thinnest...it would place Chenle in the greatest danger, but also place the lower covens in a more advantageous position to wield his power for themselves. He sees Ten play this through his mind, to reach the same conclusion as he. “Dear Goddess, we have to stop this.”

Beside them, Chenle is asleep, and Doyoung hurries to ink him into a surely dreamless sleep. Ten loops a string of calming crystals around his neck, generously procured and given by Jungwoo, and steps back to properly look at this would-be Salvation of the Witches, unassuming and innocent in slumber. Would that they had not come to know him as deeply as they have, Ten wonders if he would not have as easily leapt to his protection.

“You wouldn’t.” Doyoung says, reading his thoughts clear as day, because the same thoughts have plagued him every night since he met him. He thinks about destined paths, when he, Johnny, Ten, Jungwoo laughed above piles of corpses scattered across the deep plateaus and dark forests, bodies matted with sweat and blood that wasn’t their own. He thinks about destined paths shifting, when he had taken Jaehyun’s hand, about hearts bleeding silver, stars illuminating a glade. And something changes in him and around him, and Doyoung knows that it’s the change that comes with a profound revelation and a newfound beginning to an old story.

“Perhaps we are meant to play out the roles given to us by Fate or our Crone.” Ten’s heart seizes at that, at the cold and truth of it. He takes Ten’s hand in his and squeezes it. “But perhaps that isn’t important now. Perhaps Fate dictates because we allow it to.”

His brother’s gaze softens, and he thinks he understands what he’s trying to say. He squeezes his hand back, just a little bit tighter.

***

Doyoung goes back to the glade three days before they are due to wake Johnny. It’s a decision made fully conscious, knowing that Jaehyun will probably be there, waiting for him. He knows that Johnny’s temperament is far from an enigma, but he still finds himself questioning everything he knows of him, especially now that Jaehyun has captured his attention. How will he react, when he finds out? Because he would, and he would be jealous, invariably. He wishes that time could move in his favour for once.

He feels Jaehyun flitter to the grand spruce tree, its blue foliage still flowering despite the season. An evergreen, like holly. “Bloodsucker.” He allows himself to be slightly playful, mouth breaking into a small grin.

“My lovely druid,” he whispers, picking Doyoung up from the waist and spinning him in circles. Doyoung’s heart catches in his throat. He threads his hands through Jaehyun’s hair when he’s put down, pulling him down for kiss. It’s chaste, but Jaehyun deepens it, tongue sweeping his lips, parting it to lick into his mouth. Doyoung moans, gripping his soft hair tightly as a thrum of pleasure courses through him.

“You were waiting for me?” He asks when he breaks the kiss to breathe. It might be too forward and too much to suppose, but he hopes that Jaehyun had thought of him more than he can imagine.

“Everyday.” His heart lifts.

Jaehyun leads them to the foot of the spruce tree, pulling him into his lap. He never wants to stop touching Doyoung, this immortal who has wedged himself in his still heart. Doyoung is dressed for the weather today, clad in a long-sleeved white striped tee with flared dark pants and a denim jacket. It makes him look simple and meek, though he is far from it.

“Everyday?” Doyoung hardly dares to let himself believe it when Jaehyun nods.

“Every second of every minute of every hour. I imagined us, just like we are now.” He smiles as he cups his face. “I imagined me kissing you for hours and hours.”

Doyoung lets him drive the kiss this time. If only eternity involved days like this with Jaehyun…but he knows this is his to have for only a short while. So he intends to make full use of their time together before he walks into the eye of the storm with Ten and Jungwoo.

“Would you let me draw on you today?”

His eyes gleam brightly in surprise and excitement, but his face is guarded, answer careful. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” he says firmly. He pushes Jaehyun’s jacket off his shoulders from his perch on his lap, leaving him in just a white tee. “Where did you imagine it?”

Jaehyun looks at him questioningly, but doesn’t follow through with an interrogation. “Up the entire length of my arm.” He’s grinning now, and his perfect porcelain features are made more human with the dimples surfacing as he smiles so genuinely for Doyoung. Doyoung can feel his stomach swirling nervously, so he gives him a quick peck for no other reason than that he simply wants to. He pulls out his holly wood pen, twists open the black ink pot, dips the pens in and presses the tip to his wrist.

“You might bleed a little,” he says. He shifts so he’s facing his left arm and has it balanced on his knees, while Jaehyun wraps his right arm around Doyoung’s waist to support him. He sketches faint vines all the way up to his elbow first, going over the lines once he’s satisfied. Jaehyun simply watches in interest, peeking over his shoulder. True to his word, tiny trickles of silver blood are dripping onto the ground, but it feels like pinpricks, the stick hardly causing any pain. He leans over to uncap another ink pot, this time cherry red.

“How did you know I was a Seo?” Doyoung has been wanting to know this since Jaehyun had figured it out within minutes of meeting him. Were they that obvious? Did they have a beacon or a halo shining above their heads, marking them as the different breed of witches that they are? He didn’t know how they looked like to other supernaturals.

“The white oak,” he replies. “And your tattoo. I saw it when I was carrying you home. If memory served, and from what I had heard about your family, I knew that only one of Johnny’s would have either or both on them.”

Doyoung hums softly in response instead of nodding to keep his concentration. He’s marking plumes of blossoms now, carefully shading the reddish-pink plums onto Jaehyun’s smooth skin. Doyoung’s hands are rough and callused from pounding his minerals and scraping himself with his own tools – far from Jaehyun’s, which is unblemished and soft. “Is that why you came after me?” He’s partially afraid to hear the answer, but he asks anyway, if not for Jaehyun’s answer then for his reaction.

Jaehyun huffs out a short laugh, but he isn’t smiling. “Maybe.” He turns Doyoung by the chin so he can look at him. “Is that what you want to hear? That I sought you out because of your name?” He hesitates at the next words. “That I want you only because you’re Seo Doyoung?”

Doyoung brings his hand up to close over Jaehyun’s hand on his cheek. He shakes his head, a soft smile gracing his fey-like features. Johnny had told him that before, that he had the physical characteristics of the fey, but a demeanour of vampires, frosty and deadly. “Sometimes I wonder myself if I let you in because of you or because of what you are. And I’m sorry that I’ll never be able to give you an answer you would want to hear.”

Honesty is the only thing he can give him. Doyoung isn’t well-versed in matters of the heart, but speaking his mind has always come naturally to him. Jaehyun doesn’t speak, but he keeps his hand where it is, sweeping a thumb over Doyoung’s lips. “I want to hear the truth, and you’ve given me that,” he says, and draws Doyoung to him, enveloping him in a tight hug. They stay like that for a while, basking in each other’s warmth quietly, the bark of the tree a solid anchor, the thick branches shielding them from the harsh sun overhead. It’s nice.

“What did you draw?” Jaehyun’s voice is slightly muffled against his shoulder. “It’s pretty.”

“Plum blossoms.” Doyoung sits up, not missing the quiver of Jaehyun’s arm as he trails two fingers up and down over his work. “They were the first flowers that came to mind when I first saw you. Beautiful and pure – like you.” And it was true. Jaehyun had been so kind, possessing a gentleness he has not known or felt towards him in his lifetime, not even with Johnny.

Jaehyun had thought Doyoung would have chosen roses, but this is more apt, more meaningful. “Thank you,” he says in place of the jumble of words threatening to burst from his tongue. Doyoung just beams, a smile that shows all of his teeth, and Jaehyun falls even deeper.

They rearrange themselves to lie flat on the ground, both tangled in each other’s arms and in each other’s space. “How does it work?” He knows that Doyoung is a healer, but there are hundreds of thousands of plants and flowers, that it’s almost impossible to know each one by name, and know its properties. He tells this to Doyoung.

“It’s the intention behind it,” he explains. “Anyone could tattoo flowers on anyone else. What makes it different for me is that I can imbue these flowers into a person’s aura, but I make it temporary. My power lies not in drawing, but in transferring the flowers’ powers. The drawing is merely the medium that I choose to do it by, and a more effective way because I can make it permanent – like my holly tattoo, or I can make it last a week or two, as I do for all my clients. It would be dangerous to make it last forever.”

Jaehyun nods, fascinated. “Is that what you’re doing for Chenle, then? Minhyung said Liyin had contracted your services in the lead-up to his purification.” Purification – what a polite way to say that he was dying. “It makes sense to ask a Seo, of course. No one else would be as capable.”

Doyoung still can’t quite wrap his head around addressing either Minhyung or Lady Zhong in such a nonchalant manner, let alone imagine ever speaking to them as a friend. But then, Jaehyun has lived for longer than he, and his status as a Silverblood means he isn’t someone to be taken lightly. “Of sorts. I’m merely meant to be an aide to make the process less…painful.” His forehead wrinkles at that.

“It must be terrible, to have to watch him die,” he observes, voice cool. “I have not seen Liyin in a long time, but I can imagine how distraught she must be, despite the honour it will bring to the Zhongs.”

Doyoung doesn’t trust himself to speak. His words will carry to who knows where, and there is too much at stake. “Yule is still a ways away yet,” he finally says after a beat too long, but Jaehyun simply pulls him that much closer, kissing his cheek.

He picks another topic. “What’s he like? Johnny.”

A bemused smile crosses his lips. “You have a lot of questions for me today.”

“I want to know you.”

Johnny. Where to begin? Does he talk about when they first met? When he had pledged to an eternity together? When the world was younger and they could rule with both benevolence and brutality with impunity. “He’s like a god.” He doesn’t know how else to describe it. He’s a myth. Or like air. Never really here or anywhere, but still very much present. He’s just Johnny, and a god who will rise from the earth in the next three days.

“After three centuries, that’s the only thing you have to say?” Jaehyun’s mouth quirks up, but his eyes are clearly alight with curiosity.

“He’s Johnny,” Doyoung says, speaking his thoughts, and curls himself more around Jaehyun, needing to feel his warmth and the strength of his body around him. “Just Johnny.”

Doyoung turns his head to kiss his mouth. He’ll never tire of this. Having Jaehyun like this is a breath of fresh air. He moves so that Jaehyun’s lips are against his throat, and he uses a hand on his head to keep it there, tapping his fingers on his hair as a signal.

Jaehyun freezes. “Doyoung.”

“Bite me, Jaehyun,” he says, eyes boring into his. “I’ve seen you stealing glances at my neck, I know you want to.”

Jaehyun shakes his head profusely, his eyes reflecting nothing short of alarm. “No, Doyoung, my love, I will not. Not when you are being impulsive like this.”

He picks up his holly stick, placing it above his collarbone. Jaehyun moves to knock it out of his hand but Doyoung raises his hand, and a hanging vine shoots down to furl tightly around both wrists, pulling him back and away. “Doyoung!” Jaehyun screams now. “Stop, please stop, why are you being like this!” He’s half-sobbing as he pulls uselessly against the vine.

“I’m so tired, Jaehyun. I just want to feel, instead of think. So please, bite me.” The rest of the sentence remains unspoken, but he knows exactly what Doyoung means to say, and he has to give in.

“I don’t like this,” he says, but he’s stopped struggling now, and Doyoung releases the vine, dropping the pen to the ground at the same time. Jaehyun covers the short distance between them with vampiric speed, backing them against the tree, placing one hand on his hip and another on his jaw. He sighs softly, and looks down at Doyoung, those light green eyes sparkling in the night, enthralling him.

“Tell me if it hurts too much.” He kisses him first, taking those soft lips in his, needing him to relax. He feels Doyoung melt under him like he always does, and then he’s brushing his lips lightly over the side of his neck, pressing kisses there. Doyoung’s breath hitches in anticipation, and Jaehyun’s pupils dilate at the thought of how beautiful he will sound when he drinks from him. While he would have wanted to take his time with Doyoung, he doesn’t want to draw out the wait; he can already feel Doyoung quivering under him, so he simply licks the flesh over his vein and bites down hard.

Doyoung clutches his waist and lets out a strangled shout. His blood is sweet and tangy, just as he remembers when he had licked his wounds closed, and Jaehyun can taste the magic flowing in it and remembers he had wanted more that night. It’s rife with power, and the silver in his eyes flash brighter as he drinks more. Doyoung is whimpering, his hands falling to his sides, his only support the tree at his back and Jaehyun’s arms holding him up. He feels weightless, and the pain is gradually fading to pleasure. “Mmm, Jaehyun,” he murmurs, losing strength and cognition.

He has to stop before he takes too much. His blood is calling to him, but he will hurt Doyoung if he takes and takes and it’s this thought that makes him lower them both to the ground, using sheer willpower to pull his fangs out and lick at the bite wounds to close them up. He brushes his hair aside, stroking his cheek. “I’m sorry, I may have taken a bit too much.”

Doyoung blinks, the movement slow, but from what he’s gathered from his time with Doyoung, everything is deliberate. So he takes his hand and Doyoung strokes his palm with a finger, telling him so much with that small gesture. He loves how he feels as if he’s known him for multiple lifetimes. He kisses his hand, staining it slightly with his own blood still streaked on his mouth, dropping flat onto the ground to face him and cinch his arm around Doyoung, watching for any signs of discomfort or pain.

They pass the rest of the night watching the sun disappear and the stars and moon come out from hiding, Doyoung asleep and head pillowed on Jaehyun’s shoulder, the last peaceful night he will have in a long while.

***

They close their shop for the next week. Doyoung arranges wisteria creepers to line the doorframe of their shop, and the three of them chant obscuring and protective spells before leaving for the greenwood forest that rests in the countryside.

It would have taken hours by car, but Taeil had requested to be at the ceremony to lend his strength to the ceremony, and so they were teleporting instead – Yuta’s gift that he had inherited after his own binding with Taeil. Where Johnny is imperious and thundering, Taeil shows his power in a more reserved and quietly assertive manner that he sometimes forgets that he too is a king, and has burned cities with a nod of his head and a gleam in his eye, has seen him build sanctuaries for his people and command rainfall for crops to flourish – equal parts cold-blooded and tender-hearted.

Tranquillity pervades the forest when they arrive. It’s calming and lush, everything that Johnny will need when he awakens. He had chosen his resting grounds in Korea, so that his coven could still feel him near, and so that his aura would be grounding and tangible.

They form a circle, the six of them, each lining the spot where they stand with Jungwoo’s crystals and the chrysanthemum and lotus ships. Then it is Doyoung’s turn as the oldest of Johnny’s line to lead the ritual, this arcane rite. He slices deeply into the tip of his left fourth finger, above where his holly tattoo rests, letting the blood flow and soak his entire hand. He chants the first few lines of the awakening spell, and then he cuts the palm of his hand, walking the perimeter of the circle slowly to let the blood drip onto the grass. And he sings for the first time in fifty years. He sings of the tide of seasons, of evergreen tundras and hinterlands standing the test of time, of the Holly King in deep sleep under a bed of holly, ivy, hemlock, mistletoe, yew, and pine, resting at the centre of a distributary of ley lines coursing through forests, cutting across cities and nations to other strongholds of magic. He sings of the earth splitting for their Horned God, like Moses had parted the red sea for the Israelites as the Christians believe.

Doyoung’s voice soars, high and melodic. It resonates through the woods and deep underground, a siren song for his king. The other five witches watch in awe, mouths agape and eyes wide. Doyoung makes three full rounds in this manner before coming to a stop at his rightful place at the head of the circle.

The rest of the witches slash their right palms too and take up the chant, joining their blood-soaked hands and stretching it high above their heads towards the sky, calling louder and louder in Welsh. The ground beneath them quakes, creating fissures in the earth. Earth-shattering. An appropriate way to describe Johnny’s return. There’s a deep rumbling sound that reverberates through the swaying trees, as if they’re waving to welcome their king home. The ground splits and a figure rises up in the middle of their circle, surrounded by a blinding white light. Around them, the woods have come alive – the birds have taken up chirping in a cacophonous chorus, the wind screeching as it slices into their faces, swirling a torrent of fallen leaves about their circle. The air is charged, and Doyoung feels an electric hot flame shoot up his spine, the tattoo on his finger burning red hot. He wants to clamp a hand down on it, but it’s still intertwined in Ten’s hand and must remain so until the ritual is complete. He knows that Ten’s neck and Jungwoo’s wrist must be burning too, so he keeps that thought and their strength with him until the cavernous chasm below Johnny has closed and the light has faded around him.

Everyone save for Taeil drops to one bended knee, heads bent low.

“Youngho.” Taeil opens his arms to receive his twin. Doyoung doesn’t dare to look up, afraid of what to say and how to greet him in this new millennium.

“Taeil.” Johnny’s voice is as deep as he remembers, and his soul feels centred and grounded with just an utterance of a word. “You’re glowing like the sun, as always. Merry meet.” Johnny nods towards Yuta and Kun. “Thank you, Yuta, Kun.” They stand, bowing once toward Johnny before moving behind Taeil.

Doyoung knows that it is his turn to speak next, since the formalities with Taeil are over. “My king,” he whispers, eyes still pointed to the ground. “Merry meet this Equinox.”

“Rise, my child, and let me look at you,” he commands, and Doyoung obeys.

When he meets Johnny’s eyes, it’s like that first meeting all over again when he’d known that he would have done anything for him if it meant he was allowed to stay by his side. The captivating need for affection and recognition takes root in him when Johnny reaches for Doyoung’s left hand, swiping over the blood to see the holly on his finger. It tingles. “Why did you wake me, Doyoung?” He can sense the displeasure in the question through his gentle tone.

He bows his head once more, guilt prickling at him. This wasn’t how he had envisioned their reunion, forcing him from the depths of peaceful rest to interfere with divine prophecies. “It’s Zhong Liyin’s son.” He says hoarsely. “He’s the one whose blood has been foretold to grant immortality to the witches at Yule, but we believe that some covens are trying to harness it for themselves and perform his purification at Samhain instead.” He lifts their joined hands to brush his lips against Johnny’s knuckles. “We need you, please.”

He glances sideways at that, to where the rest of his family are, heads bowed. “Ten. Jungwoo.”

They too finally stand to embrace him. Johnny lets go of Doyoung to receive them. Ten goes first, kissing his knuckles too in reverence and then to the ring slid on his thumb. Jungwoo is bolder, throwing himself onto him in a bear hug. Johnny chuckles a little, indulging this because he knows how deep Jungwoo’s affections run. “Blonde suits you,” he says, ruffling his hair before bending to kiss him on the lips. Jungwoo squeals in surprise, but opens his mouth in earnest for more. Doyoung can’t exactly chastise his behaviour, because as much as he’s been dreading this, he’s missed him too.

He looks over to Taeil, who watches with disinterest, expression and posture stoic as ever. “We shall take our leave now, brother,” he says, void of any emotion. Johnny only looks up long enough to nod, and then Yuta is wrapping an arm securely around Kun and Taeil, whisking then home in a blink of an eye.

Johnny regards the three of them properly now that he has them to himself. His face is impassive but Doyoung knows a thousand thoughts are running through his mind as quick as lightning. “Tell me everything from the beginning,” the sigh he breathes out is mildly patronising.

Ten opens his mouth because he notices Doyoung dawdle.

“Your thoughts,” Johnny cuts through sharply, making Ten stutter as he fights to close his mouth shut in surprise. It would, Doyoung knows, be more frustrating to lay everything out so verbosely when he had just woken up. Ten is already moving in front of him to convey it telepathically but Johnny looks at Doyoung instead.

“Ten knows everything too,” he stammers in despair, and that is enough for Johnny to know that something is wrong.

“I believe I asked for you, Doyoung,” his voice like a puppeteer to Doyoung’s marionette heart.

He’s standing before Johnny in a minute, and in his embrace in the next. He leans into the touch unconsciously, seeking this warmth that they have been bereft of for so long. This is exactly the moment he’s been dreaming about. Apprehension, joy, doubt, relief all in one. Surely Jungwoo can feel this in him and he doesn’t know how to face any of them anymore, least of all Johnny.

“Johnny,” he whisper-chokes, voice pleading. It’s trepidation all over, his hands shaking where they rest by his sides. Johnny takes them in his hands, curling over them.

“What are you afraid of, my love? I’m here now,” says the silver-tongued snake in front of him. “Where is the prince I know you to be?”

Doyoung has not felt like a prince in decades. “I’ve missed you,” he says instead, because there’s nothing else but the truth that he’s capable of right now.

Johnny isn’t swayed, but Doyoung hadn’t expected him to be. “Open your mind to me, Doyoung, love. Let me see everything lovely that I’ve missed this while,” he says lowly, softly enough so that it passes between their ears only. He shivers at that, but forces himself not to break eye contact. Johnny stays like this, with Doyoung rooted to the ground by his piercing gaze that can see into the selfish and sinful fibres of his being. He’s waiting, Doyoung realises, for Doyoung to come to him - confident that he will always come, willingly.

In and out. One-two-one-two. He breathes deeply, and then he brings Johnny’s hands to his temples, entering his mind easily like water cascading over a waterfall. He watches like a soul watching his life’s last moments on a reel, watches Chenle spewing the black blood, and then everything is Jaehyun – Jaehyun saving him, Jaehyun crowding him into the shop corner for that first kiss, them rolling in the damp grass, Doyoung giving in to the dark angel, letting his pierce his flesh and drink his blood. It’s erotic to look at, especially since he can almost lie to himself that the boy isn’t him, that it’s someone else with Doyoung’s face and mannerisms.

Johnny pulls back to himself, flames dancing and leaping in his eyes, licking with jealousy. “A dalliance with anyone, but a dalliance with a Silverblood? Oh Doyoung, you wound me.” Behind them, he can hear the soft gasps from his brothers.

Doyoung steps back but Johnny is too quick, and he doesn’t have anywhere to run, really. He rips his collar away to display his pale neck. “He has marked you,” Johnny says with a quiet danger as he brushes his fingers on the phantom fang marks on his neck. The hairs on his nape rise. “And you let him.” The fingers curl around his neck, and pain bursts like stars behind his eyes. He screams.

“You’re mine, but you let him drink your blood anyway. The same blood that gave you a second chance, the same that runs through my veins. That is unforgivable, Doyoung.” He presses against the healed punctures and he screams again, white light clouding his vision. Doyoung knows better than to attempt to pry his hands off, so he wraps loose fingers around Johnny’s wrists, stroking it softly, pleadingly. Ten and Jungwoo can only look on, stupefied and lost.

But through all this supplication, Doyoung knows Johnny so well, knows he will demand blood in the end. If not blood for Doyoung, then blood for having touched his property, his coven.

“You don’t even know who you’ve let in, have you?” Johnny sneers. “But he has drunk your blood, and maybe he can taste the murderer that you are.”

“He understands me.” This at least, he is confident in, that Jaehyun knows his soul.

Johnny looks at him, and though his expression doesn’t change Doyoung can read what it says. He is saying _but don’t we all know what we’ve done, haven’t we all stayed, and bore the consequences together?_

“Willingly,” he spits out, the word holding so much accusation and bitterness. “He stays willingly, _unbound_.”

“Don’t lie to yourself, Doyoung,” he scoffs. “He stays because of the blood debt you owe him.” He blocks Doyoung’s path, their foreheads just about touching. “You should know the most about that, my sweet prince.”

“If I am to blame for all those people you killed with your hands, then you are as arrogant as you were the day I took you in and made you my own blood.” Johnny lunges forward and slams his head into the damp soil and Doyoung sees stars. “That self-righteous act you put on has always been your worst flaw. You just can’t admit how much you actually enjoyed bathing yourself in their blood.” He yanks at Doyoung’s hair again but Doyoung has his hands around them, closing over Johnny’s. Tears stream down his face, and Johnny sees the young witch he had held in his arms as he lay dying, begging for his life, and Johnny struck by his will to live so badly, denying Death of his soul, sweeping him into immortality with him.

He bends down, flicking a tongue over the tear tracks, tracing the trail down to his mouth before sealing their lips together. Doyoung whines, but his hands remain where they are, above his head and over Johnny’s. He can feel Johnny smirking against his lips, but he still arches up into his mouth for more. He slips his tongue into his mouth, licking over his teeth and sucking on Doyoung’s tongue. He feels Doyoung squirm under him, making noises that send a flutter to his stomach. He cries when Johnny breaks the kiss and digs sharp fingers – almost claw-like – into his ribs.

He revels in the shallow breaths Doyoung draws to steady his erratic heart. “Lee Sunmi,” he whispers on purpose, so that Ten and Jungwoo are forced to strain their ears to listen. “Lee Sunmi is Jaehyun’s mother.” Ten visibly pales. Next to him, Jungwoo is the picture of confusion. And Doyoung is overcome with a sick, twisted vision of the gods laughing cruelly above as they arrange fates on chessboards.

“Then he is not a half-witch,” Ten stutters out. “He cannot be a Silverblood. Sunmi was fey. And she was not with child.”

“My lovely Ten, Sunmi was fey. She had a child with a human. But she wasn’t murdered because she loved a human, but because he led a rampage against her family and killed most of them in their sleep. He killed because they had failed to protect their son, who was bitten and sired by the one who resides in the mountains.”

So many horrors, all borne from love. Doyoung wondered that they were in the same position now.

Of course, Johnny had never seen fit to mention how the Lees came to be, only that they had killed Sunmi at the Lees' request because they couldn't themselves; she was too powerful. But then, their younger selves had never thought to question their beautiful king who led them into battle and redemption. Ten is as white as a sheet now, hands scratching at his tattoo for a comfort that won’t come. “And as for her child, she had already given birth to him and to another, a girl, and her line carries unbroken to the sun child.”

The silence that follows is a telling sign that not even Ten had known this. “Donghyuck?” Secrets and more secrets. How many more did Johnny hold as trophies and blackmail, dangling them when the time was right?

“She was a Lee,” Doyoung muses half-deliriously as his mind churns, and all the pieces begin to fall into place. “That’s why they turned to witchcraft, because she had been killed by witches.” He remembers Johnny’s words the day they had learnt of this. _“To destroy, they must first understand.”_ Of course. Of course Jaehyun knew Minhyung as intimately as he did, and why Taemin spared no qualms at having a Silverblood on their premises. They were cousins. Blood always runs deep for their kind. And now he would come for him, just as Doyoung had come for his mother.

Lovely, pure-hearted Jaehyun. And now he was going to have to kill him before he killed Doyoung first.

“You’ll have to kill him,” Johnny knows this too. “Because it is his right to kill you, and he will die before he lays another hand on you.”

“Johnny, wait,” Ten closes the distance between them, pulling Jungwoo along and feeling like they’re both leaping across a great valley just to reach Johnny and Doyoung. “Just, give us a second.”

Jungwoo’s eyes are round and sad. “Why didn’t you tell us, Doyoung?” He’s hurt, as he should be. What a splendid homecoming party he’s giving.

“I-I don’t know.” And that’s the worst part isn’t it, that he truly doesn’t. It was so easy before – family came first above and beyond anything, but this is new territory that he’s trespassed onto, and he’s walked unsuspectingly into quicksand, sinking deeper and deeper.

“It wasn’t on purpose, I swear. It just wasn’t as important at first, but things just –” He doesn’t finish.

“Things just happened,” Ten says, not unkindly but not sympathetic either – more matter-of-fact, that he can believe that Doyoung is capable of this. Of lies, of keeping secrets, of possibly loving another.

“Are you in love with him?” Jungwoo probes, asking the question that is on everyone’s minds. He sees him steel himself, because to Jungwoo it isn’t possible. Not when they have each other, and not when they have Johnny.

“I don’t know,” he says again, another miserable answer.

His brothers bear the faces of ones who cannot fathom this, and this time it isn’t Johnny who is disappointed.

“Come, my loves, let us go home,” Johnny commands. It’s only a temporary respite, but Doyoung is relieved nonetheless. He wraps both arms around Doyoung from behind, winding around and threading on his stomach, giving him a physical comfort he has been craving. Doyoung places his hands on them. Ten and Jungwoo each flank his sides, curling strong fingers around his biceps. The four of them, together again.

Johnny closes his eyes, chanting under his breath until wisps of green swirl around them, and then they’re vanishing into thin air.

***

“The Zhong boy is our main priority,” Johnny instructs. “We cannot afford any other distractions. We can talk about the Jung business, but later, when we’ve resolved this.” Johnny has lifted a huge burden off Doyoung’s shoulders, like Atlas without his rock. Sometimes, Johnny’s kindness shone through, but always with it a film of a shadow.

They pore over books upon books of ancient rituals and spells, and papers documenting Chenle’s birth when the seers had read his prophecy.

“This black blood,” Johnny says as he studies a vial of it that Ten had collected to brew potions that might counter the escalation. “Those runes have blackened it artificially, so it has been poisoned. This in and of itself, will either kill any who drinks it, or strengthen.” He picks up one of Doyoung’s wand-pens and twirls it in his hand. Touching any kind of flora always brings comfort to him. “Blood magic in this way…it is already a profane act for witches to even drink another’s blood, let alone one’s own.”

“But the witches were always meant to drink it anyway,” Ten points out. “Does that mean every coven save for ours and Taeil’s would be in violation of our code?”

“I said it was profane, not that it was against any of our laws,” Johnny says, pulling out the stopper to pour a few drops onto a piece of sketch paper lying on the table. “Immortality is an enviable thing, Ten, and this would place them on a more even footing alongside the fey and vampires. I cannot say I blame them.” This was one of the things that had made them drawn to Johnny – his pension for rationality and contained kindness, and the ability to sway with his own logic.

“However, what would be a violation would be sharing this blood with the likes of demons and spirits not from our realm, which will happen should it happen on Nos Galan Gaeaf.” He uses the Welsh term for Samhain. “He would be presented as a sacrifice to them, in exchange for greater power, perhaps larger than immortality. Perhaps to control time, or revive the dead.” In essence, powers to influence something bigger than yourself, Doyoung thinks.

The room falls quiet, save for when Jungwoo perches himself on Johnny’s lap, curling into him. Johnny just hums lowly and reciprocates, wrapping his arms around Jungwoo and holding him fast against him.

“What should we do then?” Jungwoo exhales softly against his shirt, his question partially being drowned out by his mouth against the cotton.

“We kill him. Remove the source of this disaster first before they can use it,” he’s ever so unruffled, his aura equanimous as he leans against the chair like the king he is on a throne of winter blooms.

Jungwoo stiffens against him but doesn’t move, only grips Johnny’s shirt tighter.

Ten too, freezes all over. “We came to you for protection of the boy,” he stutters over the fat tears of distress rolling down his cheeks at his suggestion. “We – I -– can’t kill him.”

“We are protecting him, Ten. From others who would offer him as a sacrificial lamb,” His tone is patient, albeit slightly condescending.

“No!” He screams, in a horrid state now. “This is not our way!”

“Is it not? I maintain order, Chittaphon. You should know that very well.” His voice takes an eerie cold. “And you called me to make a decision that neither of you three were able to make. So I am calling it.” Ten falls silent at this, unable to deny their past and the truth in Johnny’s words.

Doyoung remains quiet through all this, and not for the first time wishes that he never begged Johnny to take him away, never became tied to the seasons and the earth, never having to be responsible for whether he brought life or death with a sound or a wave of his hand. But this is his burden to bear and his lot in this immortal life. And it would be wrong to run from it. _There are some things that our names and our souls are bound to now_, Johnny had whispered on those Welsh plains, high above the hills and amidst the valley of cliffs. He had held Doyoung’s hands in his and Doyoung had been willing, and had promised to be faithful to his coven and to Johnny.

Duty-bound. Doyoung was and is duty-bound to protect Chenle as his healer and friend, and he cannot fail him. _Sing to me?_, Chenle had asked, and it’s becoming clearer that this is what he is supposed to do – that in all its ugliness and cruelty, sparing his life might be more inhumane.

_This is our natural order now, Doyoung._

“Ten,” he says, and Ten knows that voice.

“Doyoung, not you too?” He cries desperately, like Caesar had to Brutus.

Doyoung hopes that his eyes show just how much he is against it, because his mouth is agreeing with Johnny. Across from them, Johnny is nodding from his seat, and pushes Jungwoo back slightly to cup his cheeks.

“On the night of Samhain, you will search their minds and charge them, Ten. And Jungwoo, we must put those who are guilty to sleep.” He looks meaningfully at him, stroking his blonde curls.

Jungwoo shakes his head, and he’s trembling all over. He slips to the floor, crying quietly as he grabs both of Johnny’s hands in a pleading gesture. “I don’t do that. Not...anymore,” he hiccups. “I don’t.” He repeats it again, this time more resolute, like a reminder to himself.

“You’ll do it now.” Goddess, how Doyoung’s blood sings at the order, even when it isn’t aimed at him. He will always be drawn to him, his King. He cradles Jungwoo’s cheek lovingly, like parent to child. But then, they are all his children. “When did we ever walk in the light, my child?” He kisses his hair. “When did we ever refuse our carnal desires?”

His blood is roaring now. He sees a violent shudder rip through his brother, whittling down to minuscule tremors as he falls to his knees before his leader. “My blood is your blood,” his voice rings clear and pure like the angelus bell even as it shakes through the submission.

A wide, triumphant smile crosses his features, and for a moment Doyoung sees a flash of his true form, antlers twisted on his head, deep obsidian eyes, vines coiled around a chiselled lanky human body, a crown of holly leaves, flowers, and berries sitting atop his head, a riveting, grotesque, beautiful creature. “And blood will have blood.” His deep voice finishes the lines they had spoken at each of their bindings, curling his fingers into Jungwoo’s blonde hair, stroking it again tenderly as Jungwoo bows his head even further. He lifts his head to meet Doyoung’s eyes. Those black orbs that see into his mind, into the depths of his soul. He’s afraid. He reaches out a hand, and Doyoung doesn’t want to take it in his, but he finds his body pulled like a magnet anyway.

“And Doyoung, my love, you will be the poison. You will kill the covens who stand with this.” His bones rattle with a feverish cold. No...

“Johnny, I can’t, Johnny please, please don’t make me do that.”

He draws Doyoung to him, and it’s bliss, this comforting presence, his arm fastened securely around his waist. His soul feels rested, even as his mind buzzes noisily. Johnny rests a cool forehead against his, breathing in Doyoung’s anxiety, breathing out calm; he can smell bergamot, lavender, cinnamon, can smell fire crackling in the hearth, a sprig of holly - home. He’s doing this on purpose, reminding him of his place, which is here in his arms, in Equinox, in his coven, willingly bound.

“I know what I’m asking of you, but it’s not too much is it? You’ve killed, before. For us,” his arms encircle his whole body, and it feels like he’s on Yns Mon again, when he had sworn fealty and sealed the bond and Johnny had taken him in his arms, those cruel vines pressing into his skin but not hard enough to break skin. Never, because Johnny was – is – his leader, his king, his love.

He whispers into the shell of his ear. “For me.” And he doesn’t know if it’s a question or a fact.

“Chenle has already asked this of you, what are a few dozen more?” Of course, he had seen his memory of when Chenle had asked him to use the gift he had suppressed deep within his core on him.

To refuse is a rejection of his blood and the gifts that have been borne from it. To refuse is to annihilate everything that Doyoung has known since he’d laid his soul in Johnny’s hands half a millennia ago. To refuse is to become human. And it’s the most frightening thought of all, to lose his person, for who was he without his abilities, without the ease of putting pen to paper? His blood is his paint, his body his canvas.

“Of course, there’s always the Silverblood, if you won’t kill the covens. I could force your hand, and you wouldn’t be able to stop.”

“No, no, stop, I’ll –”

“It’ll be such a pretty death.” Johnny continues. “Asleep, while his silver blood drains. It could take hours, or minutes – depending on how long you decide to draw it out.” His face is wet with tears now, shaking his head virulently with each word. “You could make it so painful, couldn’t you, love? Just like you did with his mother. Her blood tasted so sweet too, Sehun told me so.”

He feels as if he’s been drenched in icy cold water as her death plays and replays. Then Sunmi’s lifeless blue eyes changes to Jaehyun’s silver ones and even if he closes his eyes, the picture remains. He has to do this, for Jaehyun.

“So which will it be, Doyoung? Will you choose your kind or Jaehyun?”

There is no strength in his voice, but he manages to push out in tremulous breaths the traitorous words against their own people that Johnny wants to hear.

“I’ll do it.”

***

Samhain is a carnivalesque affair, with bright tents and rings of children playing and dancing around a fire. It reminds Doyoung of when they used to attend these every year in Wales and in Central Europe. There are pastries served on golden platters, and cups of mint tea and hot cocoa. Ordinarily, the three of them look forward to the festivities, but this year is ominous with the onset of Chenle’s deteriorating condition. Johnny had visited him just once prior, just to observe him with his own eyes, rather than relying on Doyoung’s.

“I can feel them,” Jungwoo notes, stretching his senses outward, searching for Chenle’s aura.

Doyoung only nods grimly, but stays where he is beside Johnny, waiting for his command. He had forgotten just how easy it is to slip into his role as his second, but his body well remembers.

It’s not yet midnight, but it is getting late. The winds are now a gentle breeze, the tents billowing mildly in the cool outdoors. “Soon,” Johnny says. “They have to start the ritual before the new day dawns.” And he’s proven correct yet again, for the mass of witches who had been scattered all about the carnival milling about have begun to congregate at the centre of the square.

Johnny just looks at the three of them, devoid of expression, but also holding so much. They meander through the wide field in the middle of the countryside, all the Korean or Korea-based covens taking the trip there to be safer, away from the baleful sounds and prying eyes of humans.

They linger, stopping occasionally at booths selling crystals or Celtic fabrics and clothes. It’s when they stop for a warm cup of cocoa that Doyoung sees him, and his heart tears into two at the sight. “Jaehyun?” He says, hardly daring to breathe. _What is he doing here?_ The rest of his family appraise him silently, taking in that he is Doyoung’s Jaehyun, Doyoung’s Silverblood. He can feel Johnny’s gaze burning into his back, but he knows that Jaehyun is but a secondary thorn against his side for tonight.

“Doyoung,” Jaehyun says quietly and cautiously, acutely aware of where they are and who they are surrounded by.

“They know,” he hurries to say, to allay his apprehension. “Why are you here?”

“For Chenle,” he replies simply. “I came with Taemin and Taeyong.”

Doyoung is about to reply, but it’s drowned by the sonorous gong signalling the end of Samhain, and the end of either Chenle or many covens tonight. This is it, Doyoung thinks. This is where my soul dies.

They join the fray of witches, Jaehyun disappearing into the crowd with his half-fey family. Doyoung wants to crane his neck to see him, but they are out of time – Chenle is the most important person now.

For the first time that night, they finally catch a glimpse of Chenle. His complexion is still deathly white, but he’s cleaned up, no more traces of blood on his skin. He dons a full black ensemble – a long-sleeved black shirt and long black pants – probably to hide all the marks on his body. His mother is by his side, steering him near the centre of the square as well, to perform the ritual, Doyoung supposes bitterly.

He takes his position, gripping the oak wand-pen under his sleeve. Johnny merely places a hand on his back, but the shaking of his hands momentarily ceases. “A minute more,” he murmurs, lips hardly moving. Ten and Jungwoo need no verbal affirmation, using their minds and senses to read Johnny instead, like they've always preferred.

He opens his mind to Ten, allowing their thoughts to mingle and flow between each other, maintaining a connection. It’s exactly five minutes to midnight when a bell rings, and then the maelstrom of terror hits. He sees Liyin first, grabbing her son by the collar, a dagger in her other hand as she makes to draw first blood. _Liyin_, Doyoung thinks mournfully. _I would have helped you_. As it is, the dagger is raised and poised to come down in a wide arc, but Doyoung hums a wordless tune, and it slices down onto the wielder instead. Liyin screams, and Doyoung feels vindicated.

Her arm comes up and down on herself once more, stabbing deeply into her collarbone, and this time the other witches catch on that this isn’t what is supposed to be happening. “Help me!” She screams, and Chenle starts to move to his mother, but Ten grabs him around the arm, pulling him away – to safety. “No, Chenle,” he shakes his head, voice kind. “You’ll want to stay next to me for the next part.”

The attendees start to run, but they’re in the middle of nowhere, and they are caught in their carefully woven trap. They are judge, jury, and executioner here, and it’s like they’re in Wales again.

_Kang, Im, Go_, Ten recites in his head, and Doyoung slashes each of them down as he sings of their deaths. Jungwoo puts the coven leaders to sleep, leaving them to be dealt with later, for Doyoung to exact a more tortuous punishment.

Now that he’s in the middle, he can see everything clearly. He can see Johnny put the innocent bystanders to sleep with a wave of his hand, he can see the grounds on fire as the guilty families throw curses and spells at them, and then he can see Jaehyun watching him with horror and a sort of stark clarity.

“It was you,” he whispers, and Doyoung feels his heart crumble to dust. “It was you who killed my mother.”

Doyoung stops singing. “Jaehyun, wait –”

“That voice – to think that that beautiful voice belonged to you all along,” he laughs angrily. “It’s haunted my dreams every night, and now, I know it’s you. Did you know who I was, all those times we met? Did you laugh when I kissed you, told you I wanted you?”

“No, not until recently, please Jaehyun, please believe me. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” He hasn’t had that much time for this to properly sink in, and he’d thought that he’d have just a bit more time before they had to face each other like this. But as always, time is not on his side. He falls to his knees, thoughts of Chenle all but abandoned.

“It seems you owe me for more than just one life, Doyoung.”

“Jaehyun, I –”

“Doyoung, watch out!” Ten’s scream echoes in his head, and he barely dodges the ball of black lightning that shoots towards him, rolling on his side. Liyin. She's still alive. He springs up from the ground, throwing out his hand to the ground to summon an earthquake. He needs to get to Chenle before either Johnny or Liyin does. He hears screams as the ground swallows them up, but he doesn’t dare to look for fear of losing time. There are clouds of dust and black smoke swirling in the air, and he chokes and bats at it.

“Chenle!” _Oh Goddess, please let me find him first_. He’d seen the boy with Ten, but that was before the Zhong coven had attacked them. “Chenle!” he calls desperately.

A hand darts out, and he can make out tendrils of black. He dashes. “ChenleChenleChenle,” he cries, throwing himself in front of him. Chenle just stares at him and takes his hand, smiling a little, as if he knows these are his final moments.

“Will you sing to me?” He asks one last time, eyes sad, and Doyoung finally, finally acquiesces.

“Just close your eyes, little one, and I’ll make everything go away. I’ve got you, I’m here.” He says almost an echo of the words Johnny had said to him before he’d turned, and he’s glad that he can share just one last thing before his own world ends.

He takes out his wand-pen, raising it above his own arm. He sings, but it’s not about a boy who will be released from his black prison. No, he sings about a young princeling and witch who allows a black poison to seep into his veins, to draw from a well of cursed prophecies and bad luck forever. He sings of a snake witch who grows old, old enough to see the world outside of his bedroom.

“Doyoung, no!”

But it’s too late. The black blood drips from Chene’s mouth, flowing in the air and into Doyoung, swirling about his legs, torso and head. Doyoung slashes his arm quickly, dipping the pen in his own red blood – Johnny’s blood – and drawing a lotus on Chenle.”My gift to you,” he whispers unsteadily, already feeling the effects of the black poison his body is absorbing.

“Doyoung,” Chenle is crying now, and his lips already have some colour returning to it. “I don’t know how I can repay you for this.”

“Doyoung, do not do this thing!” It’s Johnny now, his king, his eternal love and leader. He crashes to the ground, and a smog of black surrounds him and then it’s vanishing into his skin.

“You stupid, stupid witch,” Johnny says as he collapses beside him, taking him in his arms. “I order you to release this.” But they both know it’s futile.

Behind him, Doyoung can see Ten and Jungwoo standing at his sides, always flanking him, his dutiful soldiers and brothers. Chenle and Jaehyun stand next to them, stock-still and eyes wide in shock.

“Dongyoung,” Johnny says his full Korean name, something he has not heard in a hundred years. He brushes his hair back, laying a finger on his cheek. "Dongyoung," he says again, softer and tender. Doyoung only smiles, turning his head slightly to kiss his wrist. All around them are bodies of the fallen, Johnny having cut off most of their heads with his longsword he had hidden in his robes. He hopes Liyin is one of them.

“I can save him,” Jaehyun rushes out. “Let me save him.”

“And how, by turning him into one of you?” Johnny half-roars.

“No, but yes. His blood, it’s different. He might not survive a turning, but he might be able to fight off the effects of this if he drinks from me.” He looks down at his love, and he hopes he’s right.

“Do it.” Ten pipes up. “Do it, please.”

Jaehyun looks to Johnny for consent, but he’s already moving Doyoung off him, ready for Jaehyun to take him in his arms, which he does. “Doyoung,” he says, eyes full of love, “just bear with me a little longer, alright? Just a little bit, darling.” Doyoung just blinks once, but it is enough.

He bites his wrist with his fangs, keeping them wedged there to prevent it from healing over instantly. He holds it over Doyoung's mouth. Jungwoo crouches down to prop Doyoung up and his mouth open, angling his head to allow the silver blood to drip in. Doyoung gags and gurgles, but Jungwoo holds fast, securing his body when he’s wracked by a seizure, black liquid frothing at his mouth, spilling out.

“It’s working,” Jungwoo announces incredulously. “By the Goddess it’s working.”

Jaehyun drips more in for good measure, Jungwoo and now Ten holding him down as more black pours out with each gulp of silver.

“That’s enough,” Johnny’s voice rips through the air. “Enough, before Jung collapses from blood loss and has to drink from one of us.”

Jaehyun stops, partly because Johnny is right, and partly because Doyoung has stopped vomiting black. He presses a kiss to his forehead, whispering a fey poem that his mother used to sing to him when he had bad dreams.

“You love him, don’t you,” Doyoung’s king says, and Jaehyun can only nod.

“You do, too.” Johnny doesn’t answer, but it’s a given, somehow. Jaehyun had watched their exchange, and he thinks that their love for each other is something he will never quite understand. Still, he respects it.

“Youngho,” a faint croak calls. The four of them whip their heads to Doyoung, whose eyes are glassy, but very much awake and sound. “Youngho.”

Johnny draws himself closer, bending down to kiss him on the lips first before he takes his hand, reads his eyes, sees his soul. “You’re not staying.” He says.

Doyoung shakes his head minutely, but squeezes his hand and draws a phantom holly, followed by a rose on his palm, and Johnny understands. “You’re mine,” he reminds Doyoung, but this time it’s laced with fondness, but no less possessive.

Doyoung nods as if to say _always_, and then he’s tilting his head, as if asking for Jaehyun.

“Jaehyun,” he murmurs, and struggles until he is sitting up properly with some help from Ten. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” Jaehyun says suddenly, as he kneels to face him at eye-level. Doyoung smiles, and it’s that wide gummy grin that Jaehyun loves.

“I’m coming with you,” He says in answer, and Jaehyun’s heart swells. “Wherever you're going. I owe you time, don’t I?”

"Yes, you do," he says, and it's word-for-word and deja vu, like how they'd first met on the street, Jaehyun leaning over Doyoung, Doyoung bleeding out to death, Jaehyun saving him.

Jaehyun curls a hand around his head and kisses him sweetly, and like always, Doyoung melts.

_~ fin~_

**Author's Note:**

> If you got to the end of this, I hope you liked it!
> 
> This is my first major piece, so it took...quite a lot of time to formulate, but I loved every bit of when I was writing it! This idea had been on my mind for a while, so I was super excited to finally get this out somewhere~
> 
> I borrowed and adapted from Wiccan/Celtic/Paganistic lore and molded it somewhat, so some parts are accurate and some are purely for artistic license.
> 
> For the meanings of flowers, I mostly got them from the wiki page titled ['plant symbolism'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_symbolism)


End file.
